Bioinformatics: A Practical Guide to the Analysis of Genes and Proteins Second Edition (Methods of Biochemical Analysis)

BIOINFORMATICS A Practical Guide to the Analysis of Genes and Proteins SECOND EDITION Andreas D. Baxevanis Genome Techno...

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BIOINFORMATICS A Practical Guide to the Analysis of Genes and Proteins SECOND EDITION Andreas D. Baxevanis Genome Technology Branch National Human Genome Research Institute National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland USA

B. F. Francis Ouellette Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics Children’s and Women’s Health Centre of British Columbia University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia Canada

A JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC., PUBLICATION New York

•

Chichester

•

Weinheim

•

Brisbane

•

Singapore

•

Toronto

BIOINFORMATICS SECOND EDITION

METHODS OF BIOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS Volume 43

BIOINFORMATICS A Practical Guide to the Analysis of Genes and Proteins SECOND EDITION Andreas D. Baxevanis Genome Technology Branch National Human Genome Research Institute National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland USA

B. F. Francis Ouellette Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics Children’s and Women’s Health Centre of British Columbia University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia Canada

A JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC., PUBLICATION New York

•

Chichester

•

Weinheim

•

Brisbane

•

Singapore

•

Toronto

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. In all instances where John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is aware of a claim, the product names appear in initial capital or ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Readers, however, should contact the appropriate companies for more complete information regarding trademarks and registration. Copyright 䉷 2001 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including uploading, downloading, printing, decompiling, recording or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, (212) 850-6011, fax (212) 850-6008, E-Mail: [email protected]. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

This title is also available in print as ISBN 0-471-38390-2 (cloth) and ISBN 0-471-38391-0 (paper). For more information about Wiley products, visit our website at www.Wiley.com.

ADB dedicates this book to his Goddaughter, Anne Terzian, for her constant kindness, good humor, and love—and for always making me smile. BFFO dedicates this book to his daughter, Maya. Her sheer joy and delight in the simplest of things lights up my world everyday.

CONTENTS

Foreword ........................................................................................ Preface ........................................................................................... Contributors ...................................................................................

1

BIOINFORMATICS AND THE INTERNET

xiii xv xvii

1

Andreas D. Baxevanis

2

Internet Basics .......................................................................... Connecting to the Internet .......................................................... Electronic Mail ......................................................................... File Transfer Protocol ................................................................ The World Wide Web ................................................................ Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 1 .................... References ................................................................................

2 4 7 10 13 16 17

THE NCBI DATA MODEL

19

James M. Ostell, Sarah J. Wheelan, and Jonathan A. Kans

3

Introduction .............................................................................. PUBs: Publications or Perish ...................................................... SEQ-Ids: What’s in a Name? ...................................................... BIOSEQs: Sequences ................................................................. BIOSEQ-SETs: Collections of Sequences ..................................... SEQ-ANNOT: Annotating the Sequence ...................................... SEQ-DESCR: Describing the Sequence ....................................... Using the Model ....................................................................... Conclusions .............................................................................. References ................................................................................

19 24 28 31 34 35 40 41 43 43

THE GENBANK SEQUENCE DATABASE

45

Ilene Karsch-Mizrachi and B. F. Francis Ouellette Introduction .............................................................................. Primary and Secondary Databases ............................................... Format vs. Content: Computers vs. Humans ................................. The Database ............................................................................

45 47 47 49 vii

viii

CONTENTS

4

The GenBank Flatfile: A Dissection ............................................. Concluding Remarks .................................................................. Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 3 .................... References ................................................................................ Appendices ............................................................................... Appendix 3.1 Example of GenBank Flatfile Format .................. Appendix 3.2 Example of EMBL Flatfile Format ...................... Appendix 3.3 Example of a Record in CON Division ...............

49 58 58 59 59 59 61 63

SUBMITTING DNA SEQUENCES TO THE DATABASES

65

Jonathan A. Kans and B. F. Francis Ouellette

5

Introduction .............................................................................. Why, Where, and What to Submit? ............................................. DNA/RNA ................................................................................ Population, Phylogenetic, and Mutation Studies ............................ Protein-Only Submissions ........................................................... How to Submit on the World Wide Web ...................................... How to Submit with Sequin ....................................................... Updates .................................................................................... Consequences of the Data Model ................................................ EST/STS/GSS/HTG/SNP and Genome Centers ............................. Concluding Remarks .................................................................. Contact Points for Submission of Sequence Data to DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank ........................................................... Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 4 .................... References ................................................................................

65 66 67 69 69 70 70 77 77 79 79

STRUCTURE DATABASES

83

80 80 81

Christopher W. V. Hogue Introduction to Structures ........................................................... PDB: Protein Data Bank at the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB) ............................................ MMDB: Molecular Modeling Database at NCBI .......................... Stucture File Formats ................................................................. Visualizing Structural Information ............................................... Database Structure Viewers ........................................................ Advanced Structure Modeling ..................................................... Structure Similarity Searching ..................................................... Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 5 .................... Problem Set .............................................................................. References ................................................................................

6

GENOMIC MAPPING AND MAPPING DATABASES

83 87 91 94 95 100 103 103 106 107 107

111

Peter S. White and Tara C. Matise Interplay of Mapping and Sequencing ......................................... Genomic Map Elements .............................................................

112 113

ix

CONTENTS

Types of Maps .......................................................................... Complexities and Pitfalls of Mapping .......................................... Data Repositories ...................................................................... Mapping Projects and Associated Resources ................................. Practical Uses of Mapping Resources .......................................... Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 6 .................... Problem Set .............................................................................. References ................................................................................

7

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL FROM BIOLOGICAL DATABASES

115 120 122 127 142 146 148 149

155

Andreas D. Baxevanis Integrated Information Retrieval: The Entrez System ..................... LocusLink ................................................................................ Sequence Databases Beyond NCBI ............................................. Medical Databases ..................................................................... Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 7 .................... Problem Set .............................................................................. References ................................................................................

8

SEQUENCE ALIGNMENT AND DATABASE SEARCHING

156 172 178 181 183 184 185

187

Gregory D. Schuler Introduction .............................................................................. The Evolutionary Basis of Sequence Alignment ............................ The Modular Nature of Proteins .................................................. Optimal Alignment Methods ....................................................... Substitution Scores and Gap Penalties ......................................... Statistical Significance of Alignments .......................................... Database Similarity Searching ..................................................... FASTA ..................................................................................... BLAST .................................................................................... Database Searching Artifacts ....................................................... Position-Specific Scoring Matrices .............................................. Spliced Alignments .................................................................... Conclusions .............................................................................. Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 8 .................... References ................................................................................

9

CREATION AND ANALYSIS OF PROTEIN MULTIPLE SEQUENCE ALIGNMENTS

187 188 190 193 195 198 198 200 202 204 208 209 210 212 212

215

Geoffrey J. Barton Introduction .............................................................................. What is a Multiple Alignment, and Why Do It? ........................... Structural Alignment or Evolutionary Alignment? ......................... How to Multiply Align Sequences ...............................................

215 216 216 217

x

CONTENTS

Tools to Assist the Analysis of Multiple Alignments ..................... Collections of Multiple Alignments ............................................. Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 9 .................... Problem Set .............................................................................. References ................................................................................

10

PREDICTIVE METHODS USING DNA SEQUENCES

222 227 228 229 230

233

Andreas D. Baxevanis GRAIL ..................................................................................... FGENEH/FGENES .................................................................... MZEF ...................................................................................... GENSCAN ............................................................................... PROCRUSTES ......................................................................... How Well Do the Methods Work? .............................................. Strategies and Considerations ...................................................... Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 10 .................. Problem Set .............................................................................. References ................................................................................

11

PREDICTIVE METHODS USING PROTEIN SEQUENCES

235 236 238 240 241 246 248 250 251 251

253

Sharmila Banerjee-Basu and Andreas D. Baxevanis Protein Identity Based on Composition ........................................ Physical Properties Based on Sequence ........................................ Motifs and Patterns .................................................................... Secondary Structure and Folding Classes ..................................... Specialized Structures or Features ............................................... Tertiary Structure ....................................................................... Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 11 .................. Problem Set .............................................................................. References ................................................................................

12

EXPRESSED SEQUENCE TAGS (ESTs)

254 257 259 263 269 274 277 278 279

283

Tyra G. Wolfsberg and David Landsman What is an EST? ....................................................................... EST Clustering .......................................................................... TIGR Gene Indices .................................................................... STACK .................................................................................... ESTs and Gene Discovery .......................................................... The Human Gene Map .............................................................. Gene Prediction in Genomic DNA .............................................. ESTs and Sequence Polymorphisms ............................................ Assessing Levels of Gene Expression Using ESTs ........................ Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 12 .................. Problem Set .............................................................................. References ................................................................................

284 288 293 293 294 294 295 296 296 298 298 299

xi

CONTENTS

13

SEQUENCE ASSEMBLY AND FINISHING METHODS

303

Rodger Staden, David P. Judge, and James K. Bonfield The Use of Base Cell Accuracy Estimates or Confidence Values .... The Requirements for Assembly Software .................................... Global Assembly ....................................................................... File Formats ............................................................................. Preparing Readings for Assembly ................................................ Introduction to Gap4 .................................................................. The Contig Selector ................................................................... The Contig Comparator .............................................................. The Template Display ................................................................ The Consistency Display ............................................................ The Contig Editor ..................................................................... The Contig Joining Editor .......................................................... Disassembling Readings ............................................................. Experiment Suggestion and Automation ....................................... Concluding Remarks .................................................................. Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 13 .................. Problem Set .............................................................................. References ................................................................................

14

PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS

305 306 306 307 308 311 311 312 313 316 316 319 319 319 321 321 322 322

323

Fiona S. L. Brinkman and Detlef D. Leipe Fundamental Elements of Phylogenetic Models ............................ Tree Interpretation—The Importance of Identifying Paralogs and Orthologs ........................................................................ Phylogenetic Data Analysis: The Four Steps ................................ Alignment: Building the Data Model ........................................... Alignment: Extraction of a Phylogenetic Data Set ........................ Determining the Substitution Model ............................................ Tree-Building Methods ............................................................... Distance, Parsimony, and Maximum Likelihood: What’s the Difference? ............................................................................ Tree Evaluation ......................................................................... Phylogenetics Software .............................................................. Internet-Accessible Phylogenetic Analysis Software ...................... Some Simple Practical Considerations ......................................... Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 14 .................. References ................................................................................

15

COMPARATIVE GENOME ANALYSIS

325 327 327 329 333 335 340 345 346 348 354 356 356 357

359

Michael Y. Galperin and Eugene V. Koonin Progress in Genome Sequencing ................................................. Genome Analysis and Annotation ................................................ Application of Comparative Genomics—Reconstruction of Metabolic Pathways ............................................................... Avoiding Common Problems in Genome Annotation .....................

360 366 382 385

xii

CONTENTS

Conclusions .............................................................................. Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 15 .................. Problems for Additional Study .................................................... References ................................................................................

16

LARGE-SCALE GENOME ANALYSIS

387 387 389 390

393

Paul S. Meltzer Introduction .............................................................................. Technologies for Large-Scale Gene Expression ............................. Computational Tools for Expression Analysis ............................... Hierarchical Clustering ............................................................... Prospects for the Future ............................................................. Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 16 .................. References ................................................................................

17

USING PERL TO FACILITATE BIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

393 394 399 407 409 410 410

413

Lincoln D. Stein Getting Started .......................................................................... How Scripts Work ..................................................................... Strings, Numbers, and Variables .................................................. Arithmetic ................................................................................ Variable Interpolation ................................................................. Basic Input and Output .............................................................. Filehandles ............................................................................... Making Decisions ...................................................................... Conditional Blocks .................................................................... What is Truth? .......................................................................... Loops ....................................................................................... Combining Loops with Input ...................................................... Standard Input and Output ......................................................... Finding the Length of a Sequence File ........................................ Pattern Matching ....................................................................... Extracting Patterns ..................................................................... Arrays ...................................................................................... Arrays and Lists ........................................................................ Split and Join ............................................................................ Hashes ..................................................................................... A Real-World Example .............................................................. Where to Go From Here ............................................................ Internet Resources for Topics Presented in Chapter 17 .................. Suggested Reading ....................................................................

414 416 417 418 419 420 422 424 427 430 430 432 433 435 436 440 441 444 444 445 446 449 449 449

Glossary .......................................................................................... Index ...............................................................................................

451 457

FOREWORD

I am writing these words on a watershed day in molecular biology. This morning, a paper was officially published in the journal Nature reporting an initial sequence and analysis of the human genome. One of the fruits of the Human Genome Project, the paper describes the broad landscape of the nearly 3 billion bases of the euchromatic portion of the human chromosomes. In the most narrow sense, the paper was the product of a remarkable international collaboration involving six countries, twenty genome centers, and more than a thousand scientists (myself included) to produce the information and to make it available to the world freely and without restriction. In a broader sense, though, the paper is the product of a century-long scientific program to understand genetic information. The program began with the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws at the beginning of the 20th century, showing that information was somehow transmitted from generation to generation in discrete form. During the first quarter-century, biologists found that the cellular basis of the information was the chromosomes. During the second quarter-century, they discovered that the molecular basis of the information was DNA. During the third quarter-century, they unraveled the mechanisms by which cells read this information and developed the recombinant DNA tools by which scientists can do the same. During the last quarter-century, biologists have been trying voraciously to gather genetic information-first from genes, then entire genomes. The result is that biology in the 21st century is being transformed from a purely laboratory-based science to an information science as well. The information includes comprehensive global views of DNA sequence, RNA expression, protein interactions or molecular conformations. Increasingly, biological studies begin with the study of huge databases to help formulate specific hypotheses or design large-scale experiments. In turn, laboratory work ends with the accumulation of massive collections of data that must be sifted. These changes represent a dramatic shift in the biological sciences. One of the crucial steps in this transformation will be training a new generation of biologists who are both computational scientists and laboratory scientists. This major challenge requires both vision and hard work: vision to set an appropriate agenda for the computational biologist of the future and hard work to develop a curriculum and textbook. James Watson changed the world with his co-discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA in 1953. But, he also helped train a new generation to inhabit that new world in the 1960s and beyond through his textbook, The Molecular Biology of the Gene. Discovery and teaching go hand-in-hand in changing the world. xiii

xiv

FOREWORD

In this book, Andy Baxevanis and Francis Ouellette have taken on the tremendously important challenge of training the 21st century computational biologist. Toward this end, they have undertaken the difficult task of organizing the knowledge in this field in a logical progression and presenting it in a digestible form. And, they have done an excellent job. This fine text will make a major impact on biological research and, in turn, on progress in biomedicine. We are all in their debt. Eric S. Lander February 15, 2001 Cambridge, Massachusetts

PREFACE

With the advent of the new millenium, the scientific community marked a significant milestone in the study of biology—the completion of the ‘‘working draft’’ of the human genome. This work, which was chronicled in special editions of Nature and Science in early 2001, signals a new beginning for modern biology, one in which the majority of biological and biomedical research would be conducted in a ‘‘sequence-based’’ fashion. This new approach, long-awaited and much-debated, promises to quickly lead to advances not only in the understanding of basic biological processes, but in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of many genetic and genomic disorders. While the fruits of sequencing the human genome may not be known or appreciated for another hundred years or more, the implications to the basic way in which science and medicine will be practiced in the future are staggering. The availability of this flood of raw information has had a significant effect on the field of bioinformatics as well, with a significant amount of effort being spent on how to effectively and efficiently warehouse and access these data, as well as on new methods aimed at mining this warehoused data in order to make novel biological discoveries. This new edition of Bioinformatics attempts to keep up with the quick pace of change in this field, reinforcing concepts that have stood the test of time while making the reader aware of new approaches and algorithms that have emerged since the publication of the first edition. Based on our experience both as scientists and as teachers, we have tried to improve upon the first edition by introducing a number of new features in the current version. Five chapters have been added on topics that have emerged as being important enough in their own right to warrant distinct and separate discussion: expressed sequence tags, sequence assembly, comparative genomics, large-scale genome analysis, and BioPerl. We have also included problem sets at the end of most of the chapters with the hopes that the readers will work through these examples, thereby reinforcing their command of the concepts presented therein. The solutions to these problems are available through the book’s Web site, at www.wiley.com/bioinformatics. We have been heartened by the large number of instructors who have adopted the first edition as their book of choice, and hope that these new features will continue to make the book useful both in the classroom and at the bench. There are many individuals we both thank, without whose efforts this volume would not have become a reality. First and foremost, our thanks go to all of the authors whose individual contributions make up this book. The expertise and professional viewpoints that these individuals bring to bear go a long way in making this book’s contents as strong as it is. That, coupled with their general goodxv

xvi

P R E FA C E

naturedness under tight time constraints, has made working with these men and women an absolute pleasure. Since the databases and tools discussed in this book are unique in that they are freely shared amongst fellow academics, we would be remiss if we did not thank all of the people who, on a daily basis, devote their efforts to curating and maintaining the public databases, as well as those who have developed the now-indispensible tools for mining the data contained in those databases. As we pointed out in the preface to the first edition, the bioinformatics community is truly unique in that the esprit de corps characterizing this group is one of openness, and this underlying philosophy is one that has enabled the field of bioinformatics to make the substantial strides that it has in such a short period of time. We also thank our editor, Luna Han, for her steadfast patience and support throughout the entire process of making this new edition a reality. Through our extended discussions both on the phone and in person, and in going from deadline to deadline, we’ve developed a wonderful relationship with Luna, and look forward to working with her again on related projects in the future. We also would like to thank Camille Carter and Danielle Lacourciere at Wiley for making the entire copyediting process a quick and (relatively) painless one, as well as Eloise Nelson for all of her hard work in making sure all of the loose ends came together on schedule. BFFO would like to acknowledge the continued support of Nancy Ryder. Nancy is not only a friend, spouse, and mother to our daughter Maya, but a continuous source of inspiration to do better, and to challenge; this is something that I try to do every day, and her love and support enables this. BFFO also wants to acknowledge the continued friendship and support from ADB throughout both of these editions. It has been an honor and a privilege to be a co-editor with him. Little did we know seven years ago, in the second basement of the Lister Hill Building at NIH where we shared an office, that so many words would be shared between our respective computers. ADB would also like to specifically thank Debbie Wilson for all of her help throughout the editing process, whose help and moral support went a long way in making sure that this project got done the right way the first time around. I would also like to extend special thanks to Jeff Trent, who I have had the pleasure of working with for the past several years and with whom I’ve developed a special bond, both professionally and personally. Jeff has enthusiastically provided me the latitude to work on projects like these and has been a wonderful colleague and friend, and I look forward to our continued associations in the future. Andreas D. Baxevanis B. F. Francis Ouellette

CONTRIBUTORS

Sharmila Banerjee-Basu, Genome Technology Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland Geoffrey J. Barton, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom Andreas D. Baxevanis, Genome Technology Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland James K. Bonfield, Medical Research Council, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom Fiona S. L. Brinkman, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Michael Y. Galperin, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland Christopher W. V. Hogue, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada David P. Judge, Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom Jonathan A. Kans, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland Ilene Karsch-Mizrachi, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland Eugene V. Koonin, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland David Landsman, Computational Biology Branch, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland Detlef D. Leipe, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland Tara C. Matise, Department of Genetics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey xvii

xviii

CONTRIBUTORS

Paul S. Meltzer, Cancer Genetics Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland James M. Ostell, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland B. F. Francis Ouellette, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, Children’s and Women’s Health Centre of British Columbia, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Gregory D. Schuler, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland Rodger Staden, Medical Research Council, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom Lincoln D. Stein, The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York Sarah J. Wheelan, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland and Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland Peter S. White, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tyra G. Wolfsberg, Genome Technology Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland

1 BIOINFORMATICS AND THE INTERNET Andreas D. Baxevanis Genome Technology Branch National Human Genome Research Institute National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland

Bioinformatics represents a new, growing area of science that uses computational approaches to answer biological questions. Answering these questions requires that investigators take advantage of large, complex data sets (both public and private) in a rigorous fashion to reach valid, biological conclusions. The potential of such an approach is beginning to change the fundamental way in which basic science is done, helping to more efficiently guide experimental design in the laboratory. With the explosion of sequence and structural information available to researchers, the field of bioinformatics is playing an increasingly large role in the study of fundamental biomedical problems. The challenge facing computational biologists will be to aid in gene discovery and in the design of molecular modeling, site-directed mutagenesis, and experiments of other types that can potentially reveal previously unknown relationships with respect to the structure and function of genes and proteins. This challenge becomes particularly daunting in light of the vast amount of data that has been produced by the Human Genome Project and other systematic sequencing efforts to date. Before embarking on any practical discussion of computational methods in solving biological problems, it is necessary to lay the common groundwork that will enable users to both access and implement the algorithms and tools discussed in this book. We begin with a review of the Internet and its terminology, discussing major Internet protocol classes as well, without becoming overly engaged in the engineering 1

2

B I O I N F O R M AT I C S A N D T H E I N T E R N E T

minutiae underlying these protocols. A more in-depth treatment on the inner workings of these protocols may be found in a number of well-written reference books intended for the lay audience (Rankin, 1996; Conner-Sax and Krol, 1999; Kennedy, 1999). This chapter will also discuss matters of connectivity, ranging from simple modem connections to digital subscriber lines (DSL). Finally, we will address one of the most common problems that has arisen with the proliferation of Web pages throughout the world—finding useful information on the World Wide Web.

INTERNET BASICS Despite the impression that it is a single entity, the Internet is actually a network of networks, composed of interconnected local and regional networks in over 100 countries. Although work on remote communications began in the early 1960s, the true origins of the Internet lie with a research project on networking at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the US Department of Defense in 1969 named ARPANET. The original ARPANET connected four nodes on the West Coast, with the immediate goal of being able to transmit information on defense-related research between laboratories. A number of different network projects subsequently surfaced, with the next landmark developments coming over 10 years later. In 1981, BITNET (‘‘Because It’s Time’’) was introduced, providing point-to-point connections between universities for the transfer of electronic mail and files. In 1982, ARPA introduced the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP); TCP/IP allowed different networks to be connected to and communicate with one another, creating the system in place today. A number of references chronicle the development of the Internet and communications protocols in detail (Quarterman, 1990; Froehlich and Kent, 1991; Conner-Sax and Krol, 1999). Most users, however, are content to leave the details of how the Internet works to their systems administrators; the relevant fact to most is that it does work. Once the machines on a network have been connected to one another, there needs to be an unambiguous way to specify a single computer so that messages and files actually find their intended recipient. To accomplish this, all machines directly connected to the Internet have an IP number. IP addresses are unique, identifying one and only one machine. The IP address is made up of four numbers separated by periods; for example, the IP address for the main file server at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is 130.14.25.1. The numbers themselves represent, from left to right, the domain (130.14 for NIH), the subnet (.25 for the National Library of Medicine at NIH), and the machine itself (.1). The use of IP numbers aids the computers in directing data; however, it is obviously very difficult for users to remember these strings, so IP addresses often have associated with them a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) that is dynamically translated in the background by domain name servers. Going back to the NCBI example, rather than use 130.14.25.1 to access the NCBI computer, a user could instead use ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and achieve the same result. Reading from left to right, notice that the IP address goes from least to most specific, whereas the FQDN equivalent goes from most specific to least. The name of any given computer can then be thought of as taking the general form computer.domain, with the top-level domain (the portion coming after the last period in the FQDN) falling into one of the broad categories shown in Table 1.1. Outside the

3

INTERNET BASICS

T A B L E 1.1. Top-Level Doman Names TOP-LEVEL .com .edu .gov .mil .net .org

DOMAIN NAMES

Commercial site Educational site Government site Military site Gateway or network host Private (usually not-for-profit) organizations

EXAMPLES OF TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN NAMES USED OUTSIDE .ca Canadian site .ac.uk Academic site in the United Kingdom .co.uk Commercial site in the United Kingdom GENERIC .firm .shop .web .arts .rec .info .nom

THE

UNITED STATES

TOP-LEVEL DOMAINS PROPOSED BY

IAHC Firms or businesses Businesses offering goods to purchase (stores) Entities emphasizing activities relating to the World Wide Web Cultural and entertainment organizations Recreational organizations Information sources Personal names (e.g., yourlastname.nom)

A complete listing of domain suffixes, including country codes, can be found at http://www.currents.net/ resources/directory/noframes/nf.domains.html.

United States, the top-level domain names may be replaced with a two-letter code specifying the country in which the machine is located (e.g., .ca for Canada and .uk for the United Kingdom). In an effort to anticipate the needs of Internet users in the future, as well as to try to erase the arbitrary line between top-level domain names based on country, the now-dissolved International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC) was charged with developing a new framework of generic top-level domains (gTLD). The new, recommended gTLDs were set forth in a document entitled The Generic Top Level Domain Memorandum of Understanding (gTLD-MOU); these gTLDs are overseen by a number of governing bodies and are also shown in Table 1.1. The most concrete measure of the size of the Internet lies in actually counting the number of machines physically connected to it. The Internet Software Consortium (ISC) conducts an Internet Domain Survey twice each year to count these machines, otherwise known as hosts. In performing this survey, ISC considers not only how many hostnames have been assigned, but how many of those are actually in use; a hostname might be issued, but the requestor may be holding the name in abeyance for future use. To test for this, a representative sample of host machines are sent a probe (a ‘‘ping’’), with a signal being sent back to the originating machine if the host was indeed found. The rate of growth of the number of hosts has been phenomenal; from a paltry 213 hosts in August 1981, the Internet now has more than 60 million ‘‘live’’ hosts. The doubling time for the number of hosts is on the order of 18 months. At this time, most of this growth has come from the commercial sector, capitalizing on the growing popularity of multimedia platforms for advertising and communications such as the World Wide Web.

4


CONNECTING TO THE INTERNET Of course, before being able to use all the resources that the Internet has to offer, one needs to actually make a physical connection between one’s own computer and ‘‘the information superhighway.’’ For purposes of this discussion, the elements of this connection have been separated into two discrete parts: the actual, physical connection (meaning the ‘‘wire’’ running from one’s computer to the Internet backbone) and the service provider, who handles issues of routing and content once connected. Keep in mind that, in practice, these are not necessarily treated as two separate parts—for instance, one’s service provider may also be the same company that will run cables or fibers right into one’s home or office.

Copper Wires, Coaxial Cables, and Fiber Optics Traditionally, users attempting to connect to the Internet away from the office had one and only one option—a modem, which uses the existing copper twisted-pair cables carrying telephone signals to transmit data. Data transfer rates using modems are relatively slow, allowing for data transmission in the range of 28.8 to 56 kilobits per second (kbps). The problem with using conventional copper wire to transmit data lies not in the copper wire itself but in the switches that are found along the way that route information to their intended destinations. These switches were designed for the efficient and effective transfer of voice data but were never intended to handle the high-speed transmission of data. Although most people still use modems from their home, a number of new technologies are already in place and will become more and more prevalent for accessing the Internet away from hardwired Ethernet networks. The maximum speeds at which each of the services that are discussed below can operate are shown in Figure 1.1. The first of these ‘‘new solutions’’ is the integrated services digital network or ISDN. The advent of ISDN was originally heralded as the way to bring the Internet into the home in a speed-efficient manner; however, it required that special wiring be brought into the home. It also required that users be within a fixed distance from a central office, on the order of 20,000 feet or less. The cost of running this special, dedicated wiring, along with a per-minute pricing structure, effectively placed ISDN out of reach for most individuals. Although ISDN is still available in many areas, this type of service is quickly being supplanted by more cost-effective alternatives. In looking at alternatives that did not require new wiring, cable television providers began to look at ways in which the coaxial cable already running into a substantial number of households could be used to also transmit data. Cable companies are able to use bandwidth that is not being used to transmit television signals (effectively, unused channels) to push data into the home at very high speeds, up to 4.0 megabits per second (Mbps). The actual computer is connected to this network through a cable modem, which uses an Ethernet connection to the computer and a coaxial cable to the wall. Homes in a given area all share a single cable, in a wiring scheme very similar to how individual computers are connected via the Ethernet in an office or laboratory setting. Although this branching arrangement can serve to connect a large number of locations, there is one major disadvantage: as more and more homes connect through their cable modems, service effectively slows down as more signals attempt to pass through any given node. One way of circumventing

5

CONNECTING TO THE INTERNET

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Figure 1.1. Performance of various types of Internet connections, by maximum throughput. The numbers indicated in the graph refer to peak performance; often times, the actual performance of any given method may be on the order of one-half slower, depending on configurations and system conditions.

this problem is the installation of more switching equipment and reducing the size of a given ‘‘neighborhood.’’ Because the local telephone companies were the primary ISDN providers, they quickly turned their attention to ways that the existing, conventional copper wire already in the home could be used to transmit data at high speed. The solution here is the digital subscriber line or DSL. By using new, dedicated switches that are designed for rapid data transfer, DSL providers can circumvent the old voice switches that slowed down transfer speeds. Depending on the user’s distance from the central office and whether a particular neighborhood has been wired for DSL service, speeds are on the order of 0.8 to 7.1 Mbps. The data transfers do not interfere with voice signals, and users can use the telephone while connected to the Internet; the signals are ‘‘split’’ by a special modem that passes the data signals to the computer and a microfilter that passes voice signals to the handset. There is a special type of DSL called asynchronous DSL or ADSL. This is the variety of DSL service that is becoming more and more prevalent. Most home users download much more information than they send out; therefore, systems are engineered to provide super-fast transmission in the ‘‘in’’ direction, with transmissions in the ‘‘out’’ direction being 5–10 times slower. Using this approach maximizes the amount of bandwidth that can be used without necessitating new wiring. One of the advantages of ADSL over cable is that ADSL subscribers effectively have a direct line to the central office, meaning that they do not have to compete with their neighbors for bandwidth. This, of course, comes at a price; at the time of this writing, ADSL connectivity options were on the order of twice as expensive as cable Internet, but this will vary from region to region. Some of the newer technologies involve wireless connections to the Internet. These include using one’s own cell phone or a special cell phone service (such as

6


Ricochet) to upload and download information. These cellular providers can provide speeds on the order of 28.8–128 kbps, depending on the density of cellular towers in the service area. Fixed-point wireless services can be substantially faster because the cellular phone does not have to ‘‘find’’ the closest tower at any given time. Along these same lines, satellite providers are also coming on-line. These providers allow for data download directly to a satellite dish with a southern exposure, with uploads occuring through traditional telephone lines. Along the satellite option has the potential to be among the fastest of the options discussed, current operating speeds are only on the order of 400 kbps.

Content Providers vs. ISPs Once an appropriately fast and price-effective connectivity solution is found, users will then need to actually connect to some sort of service that will enable them to traverse the Internet space. The two major categories in this respect are online services and Internet service providers (ISPs). Online services, such as America Online (AOL) and CompuServe, offer a large number of interactive digital services, including information retrieval, electronic mail (E-mail; see below), bulletin boards, and ‘‘chat rooms,’’ where users who are online at the same time can converse about any number of subjects. Although the online services now provide access to the World Wide Web, most of the specialized features and services available through these systems reside in a proprietary, closed network. Once a connection has been made between the user’s computer and the online service, one can access the special features, or content, of these systems without ever leaving the online system’s host computer. Specialized content can range from access to online travel reservation systems to encyclopedias that are constantly being updated—items that are not available to nonsubscribers to the particular online service. Internet service providers take the opposite tack. Instead of focusing on providing content, the ISPs provide the tools necessary for users to send and receive E-mail, upload and download files, and navigate around the World Wide Web, finding information at remote locations. The major advantage of ISPs is connection speed; often the smaller providers offer faster connection speeds than can be had from the online services. Most ISPs charge a monthly fee for unlimited use. The line between online services and ISPs has already begun to blur. For instance, AOL’s now monthly flat-fee pricing structure in the United States allows users to obtain all the proprietary content found on AOL as well as all the Internet tools available through ISPs, often at the same cost as a simple ISP connection. The extensive AOL network puts access to AOL as close as a local phone call in most of the United States, providing access to E-mail no matter where the user is located, a feature small, local ISPs cannot match. Not to be outdone, many of the major national ISP providers now also provide content through the concept of portals. Portals are Web pages that can be customized to the needs of the individual user and that serve as a jumping-off point to other sources of news or entertainment on the Net. In addition, many national firms such as Mindspring are able to match AOL’s ease of connectivity on the road, and both ISPs and online providers are becoming more and more generous in providing users the capacity to publish their own Web pages. Developments such as this, coupled with the move of local telephone and cable companies into providing Internet access through new, faster fiber optic net-

ELECTRONIC MAIL

works, foretell major changes in how people will access the Net in the future, changes that should favor the end user in both price and performance.

ELECTRONIC MAIL Most people are introduced to the Internet through the use of electronic mail or E-mail. The use of E-mail has become practically indispensable in many settings because of its convenience as a medium for sending, receiving, and replying to messages. Its advantages are many: • It is much quicker than the postal service or ‘‘snail mail.’’ • Messages tend to be much clearer and more to the point than is the case for typical telephone or face-to-face conversations. • Recipients have more flexibility in deciding whether a response needs to be sent immediately, relatively soon, or at all, giving individuals more control over workflow. • It provides a convenient method by which messages can be filed or stored. • There is little or no cost involved in sending an E-mail message. These and other advantages have pushed E-mail to the forefront of interpersonal communication in both industry and the academic community; however, users should be aware of several major disadvantages. First is the issue of security. As mail travels toward its recipient, it may pass through a number of remote nodes, at any one of which the message may be intercepted and read by someone with high-level access, such as a systems administrator. Second is the issue of privacy. In industrial settings, E-mail is often considered to be an asset of the company for use in official communication only and, as such, is subject to monitoring by supervisors. The opposite is often true in academic, quasi-academic, or research settings; for example, the National Institutes of Health’s policy encourages personal use of E-mail within the bounds of certain published guidelines. The key words here are ‘‘published guidelines’’; no matter what the setting, users of E-mail systems should always find out their organization’s policy regarding appropriate use and confidentiality so that they may use the tool properly and effectively. An excellent, basic guide to the effective use of E-mail (Rankin, 1996) is recommended. Sending E-Mail. E-mail addresses take the general form user@computer. domain, where user is the name of the individual user and computer.domain specifies the actual computer that the E-mail account is located on. Like a postal letter, an E-mail message is comprised of an envelope or header, showing the E-mail addresses of sender and recipient, a line indicating the subject of the E-mail, and information about how the E-mail message actually traveled from the sender to the recipient. The header is followed by the actual message, or body, analogous to what would go inside a postal envelope. Figure 1.2 illustrates all the components of an E-mail message. E-mail programs vary widely, depending on both the platform and the needs of the users. Most often, the characteristics of the local area network (LAN) dictate what types of mail programs can be used, and the decision is often left to systems

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Body

Received: from dodo.cpmc.columbia.edu (dodo.cpmc.columbia.edu [156.111.190.78]) by members.aol.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA13177 for <[email protected]>; Sun, 2 Jan 2000 17:55:22 -0500 (EST) Received: (from phd@localhost) by dodo.cpmc.columbia.edu (980427.SGI.8.8.8/980728.SGI.AUTOCF) id RAA90300 for [email protected]; Sun, 2 Jan 2000 17:51:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2000 17:51:20 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Sender, Recipient, From: [email protected] (PredictProtein) and Subject To: [email protected] Subject: PredictProtein

Delivery details (Envelope)

Header


PredictProtein Help PHDsec, PHDacc, PHDhtm, PHDtopology, TOPITS, MaxHom, EvalSec Burkhard Rost Table of Contents for PP help 1. Introduction 1. What is it? 2. How does it work? 3. How to use it?

Figure 1.2. Anatomy of an E-mail message, with relevant components indicated. This message is an automated reply to a request for help file for the PredictProtein E-mail server.

administrators rather than individual users. Among the most widely used E-mail packages with a graphical user interface are Eudora for the Macintosh and both Netscape Messenger and Microsoft Exchange for the Mac, Windows, and UNIX platforms. Text-based E-mail programs, which are accessed by logging in to a UNIXbased account, include Elm and Pine. Bulk E-Mail. As with postal mail, there has been an upsurge in ‘‘spam’’ or ‘‘junk E-mail,’’ where companies compile bulk lists of E-mail addresses for use in commercial promotions. Because most of these lists are compiled from online registration forms and similar sources, the best defense for remaining off these bulk E-mail lists is to be selective as to whom E-mail addresses are provided. Most newsgroups keep their mailing lists confidential; if in doubt and if this is a concern, one should ask. E-Mail Servers. Most often, E-mail is thought of a way to simply send messages, whether it be to one recipient or many. It is also possible to use E-mail as a mechanism for making predictions or retrieving records from biological databases. Users can send E-mail messages in a format defining the action to be performed to remote computers known as servers; the servers will then perform the desired operation and E-mail back the results. Although this method is not interactive (in that the user cannot adjust parameters or have control over the execution of the method in real time), it does place the responsibility for hardware maintenance and software upgrades on the individuals maintaining the server, allowing users to concentrate on their results instead of on programming. The use of a number of E-mail servers is discussed in greater detail in context in later chapters. For most of these servers, sending the message help to the server E-mail address will result in a detailed set of instructions for using that server being returned, including ways in which queries need to be formatted.

ELECTRONIC MAIL

Aliases and Newsgroups. In the example in Figure 1.2, the E-mail message is being sent to a single recipient. One of the strengths of E-mail is that a single piece of E-mail can be sent to a large number of people. The primary mechanism for doing this is through aliases; a user can define a group of people within their mail program and give the group a special name or alias. Instead of using individual E-mail addresses for all of the people in the group, the user can just send the E-mail to the alias name, and the mail program will handle broadcasting the message to each person in that group. Setting up alias names is a tremendous time-saver even for small groups; it also ensures that all members of a given group actually receive all E-mail messages intended for the group. The second mechanism for broadcasting messages is through newsgroups. This model works slightly differently in that the list of E-mail addresses is compiled and maintained on a remote computer through subscriptions, much like magazine subscriptions. To participate in a newsgroup discussions, one first would have to subscribe to the newsgroup of interest. Depending on the newsgroup, this is done either by sending an E-mail to the host server or by visiting the host’s Web site and using a form to subscribe. For example, the BIOSCI newsgroups are among the most highly trafficked, offering a forum for discussion or the exchange of ideas in a wide variety of biological subject areas. Information on how to subscribe to one of the constituent BIOSCI newsgroups is posted on the BIOSCI Web site. To actually participate in the discussion, one would simply send an E-mail to the address corresponding to the group that you wish to reach. For example, to post messages to the computational biology newsgroup, mail would simply be addressed to [email protected]. net, and, once that mail is sent, everyone subscribing to that newsgroup would receive (and have the opportunity to respond to) that message. The ease of reaching a large audience in such a simple fashion is both a blessing and a curse, so many newsgroups require that postings be reviewed by a moderator before they get disseminated to the individual subscribers to assure that the contents of the message are actually of interest to the readers. It is also possible to participate in newsgroups without having each and every piece of E-mail flood into one’s private mailbox. Instead, interested participants can use news-reading software, such as NewsWatcher for the Macintosh, which provides access to the individual messages making up a discussion. The major advantage is that the user can pick and choose which messages to read by scanning the subject lines; the remainder can be discarded by a single operation. NewsWatcher is an example of what is known as a client-server application; the client software (here, NewsWatcher) runs on a client computer (a Macintosh), which in turn interacts with a machine at a remote location (the server). Client-server architecture is interactive in nature, with a direct connection being made between the client and server machines. Once NewsWatcher is started, the user is presented with a list of newsgroups available to them (Fig. 1.3). This list will vary, depending on the user’s location, as system administrators have the discretion to allow or to block certain groups at a given site. From the rear-most window in the figure, the user double-clicks on the newsgroup of interest (here, bionet.genome.arabidopsis), which spawns the window shown in the center. At the top of the center window is the current unread message count, and any message within the list can be read by double-clicking on that particular line. This, in turn, spawns the last window (in the foreground), which shows the actual message. If a user decides not to read any of the messages, or is done

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Figure 1.3. Using NewsWatcher to read postings to newsgroups. The list of newsgroups that the user has subscribed to is shown in the Subscribed List window (left). The list of new postings for the highlighted newsgroup (bionet.genome.arabidopsis) is shown in the center window. The window in the foreground shows the contents of the posting selected from the center window.

reading individual messages, the balance of the messages within the newsgroup (center) window can be deleted by first choosing Select All from the File menu and then selecting Mark Read from the News menu. Once the newsgroup window is closed, the unread message count is reset to zero. Every time NewsWatcher is restarted, it will automatically poll the news server for new messages that have been created since the last session. As with most of the tools that will be discussed in this chapter, news-reading capability is built into Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL Despite the many advantages afforded by E-mail in transmitting messages, many users have no doubt experienced frustration in trying to transmit files, or attachments, along with an E-mail message. The mere fact that a file can be attached to an E-mail message and sent does not mean that the recipient will be able to detach, decode, and actually use the attached file. Although more cross-platform E-mail packages such as Microsoft Exchange are being developed, the use of different Email packages by people at different locations means that sending files via E-mail is not an effective, foolproof method, at least in the short term. One solution to this

FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL

problem is through the use of a file transfer protocol or FTP. The workings of FTP are quite simple: a connection is made between a user’s computer (the client) and a remote server, and that connection remains in place for the duration of the FTP session. File transfers are very fast, at rates on the order of 5–10 kilobytes per second, with speeds varying with the time of day, the distance between the client and server machines, and the overall traffic on the network. In the ordinary case, making an FTP connection and transferring files requires that a user have an account on the remote server. However, there are many files and programs that are made freely available, and access to those files does not require having an account on each and every machine where these programs are stored. Instead, connections are made using a system called anonymous FTP. Under this system, the user connects to the remote machine and, instead of entering a username/ password pair, types anonymous as the username and enters their E-mail address in place of a password. Providing one’s E-mail address allows the server’s system administrators to compile access statistics that may, in turn, be of use to those actually providing the public files or programs. An example of an anonymous FTP session using UNIX is shown in Figure 1.4. Although FTP actually occurs within the UNIX environment, Macintosh and PC users can use programs that rely on graphical user interfaces (GUI, pronounced

Figure 1.4. Using UNIX FTP to download a file. An anonymous FTP session is established with the molecular biology FTP server at the University of Indiana to download the CLUSTAL W alignment program. The user inputs are shown in boldface.

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‘‘gooey’’) to navigate through the UNIX directories on the FTP server. Users need not have any knowledge of UNIX commands to download files; instead, they select from pop-up menus and point and click their way through the UNIX file structure. The most popular FTP program on the Macintosh platform for FTP sessions is Fetch. A sample Fetch window is shown in Figure 1.5 to illustrate the difference between using a GUI-based FTP program and the equivalent UNIX FTP in Figure 1.4. In the figure, notice that the Automatic radio button (near the bottom of the second window under the Get File button) is selected, meaning that Fetch will determine the appropriate type of file transfer to perform. This may be manually overridden by selecting either Text or Binary, depending on the nature of the file being transferred. As a rule, text files should be transferred as Text, programs or executables as Binary, and graphic format files such as PICT and TIFF files as Raw Data.

Figure 1.5. Using Fetch to download a file. An anonymous FTP session is established with the molecular biology FTP server at the University of Indiana (top) to download the CLUSTAL W alignment program (bottom). Notice the difference between this GUI-based program and the UNIX equivalent illustrated in Figure 1.4.

13

THE WORLD WIDE WEB

THE WORLD WIDE WEB Although FTP is of tremendous use in the transfer of files from one computer to another, it does suffer from some limitations. When working with FTP, once a user enters a particular directory, they can only see the names of the directories or files. To actually view what is within the files, it is necessary to physically download the files onto one’s own computer. This inherent drawback led to the development of a number of distributed document delivery systems (DDDS), interactive client-server applications that allowed information to be viewed without having to perform a download. The first generation of DDDS development led to programs like Gopher, which allowed plain text to be viewed directly through a client-server application. From this evolved the most widely known and widely used DDDS, namely, the World Wide Web. The Web is an outgrowth of research performed at the European Nuclear Research Council (CERN) in 1989 that was aimed at sharing research data between several locations. That work led to a medium through which text, images, sounds, and videos could be delivered to users on demand, anywhere in the world.

Navigation on the World Wide Web Navigation on the Web does not require advance knowledge of the location of the information being sought. Instead, users can navigate by clicking on specific text, buttons, or pictures. These clickable items are collectively known as hyperlinks. Once one of these hyperlinks is clicked, the user is taken to another Web location, which could be at the same site or halfway around the world. Each document displayed on the Web is called a Web page, and all of the related Web pages on a particular server are collectively called a Web site. Navigation strictly through the use of hyperlinks has been nicknamed ‘‘Web surfing.’’ Users can take a more direct approach to finding information by entering a specific address. One of the strengths of the Web is that the programs used to view Web pages (appropriately termed browsers) can be used to visit FTP and Gopher sites as well, somewhat obviating the need for separate Gopher or FTP applications. As such, a unified naming convention was introduced to indicate to the browser program both the location of the remote site and, more importantly, the type of information at that remote location so that the browser could properly display the data. This standard-form address is known as a uniform resource locator, or URL, and takes the general form protocol://computer.domain, where protocol specifies the type of site and computer.domain specifies the location (Table 1.2). The http used for the protocol in World Wide Web URLs stands for hypertext transfer protocol, the method used in transferring Web files from the host computer to the client.

T A B L E 1.2. Uniform Resource Locator (URL) Format for Each Type of Transfer Protocol General form FTP site Gopher site Web site

protocol://computer.domain ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov gopher://gopher.iubio.indiana.edu http://www.nhgri.nih.gov

14


Browsers Browsers, which are used to look at Web pages, are client-server applications that connect to a remote site, download the requested information at that site, and display the information on a user’s monitor, then disconnecting from the remote host. The information retrieved from the remote host is in a platform-independent format named hypertext markup language (HTML). HTML code is strictly text-based, and any associated graphics or sounds for that document exist as separate files in a common format. For example, images may be stored and transferred in GIF format, a proprietary format developed by CompuServe for the quick and efficient transfer of graphics; other formats, such as JPEG and BMP, may also be used. Because of this, a browser can display any Web page on any type of computer, whether it be a Macintosh, IBM compatible, or UNIX machine. The text is usually displayed first, with the remaining elements being placed on the page as they are downloaded. With minor exception, a given Web page will look the same when the same browser is used on any of the above platforms. The two major players in the area of browser software are Netscape, with their Communicator product, and Microsoft, with Internet Explorer. As with many other areas where multiple software products are available, the choice between Netscape and Internet Explorer comes down to one of personal preference. Whereas the computer literati will debate the fine points of difference between these two packages, for the average user, both packages perform equally well and offer the same types of features, adequately addressing the Webbrowser needs of most users. It is worth mentioning that, although the Web is by definition a visually-based medium, it is also possible to travel through Web space and view documents without the associated graphics. For users limited to line-by-line terminals, a browser called Lynx is available. Developed at the University of Kansas, Lynx allows users to use their keyboard arrow keys to highlight and select hyperlinks, using their return key the same way that Netscape and Internet Explorer users would click their mouse.

Internet vs. Intranet The Web is normally thought of as a way to communicate with people at a distance, but the same infrastructure can be used to connect people within an organization. Such intranets provide an easily accessible repository of relevant information, capitalizing on the simplicity of the Web interface. They also provide another channel for broadcast or confidential communication within the organization. Having an intranet is of particular value when members of an organization are physically separated, whether in different buildings or different cities. Intranets are protected: that is, people who are not on the organization’s network are prohibited from accessing the internal Web pages; additional protections through the use of passwords are also common.

Finding Information on the World Wide Web Most people find information on the Web the old-fashioned way: by word of mouth, either using lists such as those preceding the References in the chapters of this book or by simply following hyperlinks put in place by Web authors. Continuously clicking from page to page can be a highly ineffective way of finding information, though,

15

THE WORLD WIDE WEB

especially when the information sought is of a very focused nature. One way of finding interesting and relevant Web sites is to consult virtual libraries, which are curated lists of Web resources arranged by subject. Virtual libraries of special interest to biologists include the WWW Virtual Library, maintained by Keith Robison at Harvard, and the EBI BioCatalog, based at the European Bioinformatics Institute. The URLs for these sites can be found in the list at the end of this chapter. It is also possible to directly search the Web by using search engines. A search engine is simply a specialized program that can perform full-text or keyword searches on databases that catalog Web content. The result of a search is a hyperlinked list of Web sites fitting the search criteria from which the user can visit any or all of the found sites. However, the search engines use slightly different methods in compiling their databases. One variation is the attempt to capture most or all of the text of every Web page that the search engine is able to find and catalog (‘‘Web crawling’’). Another technique is to catalog only the title of each Web page rather than its entire text. A third is to consider words that must appear next to each other or only relatively close to one another. Because of these differences in search-engine algorithms, the results returned by issuing the same query to a number of different search engines can produce wildly different results (Table 1.3). The other important feature of Table 1.3 is that most of the numbers are exceedingly large, reflecting the overall size of the World Wide Web. Unless a particular search engine ranks its results by relevance (e.g., by scoring words in a title higher than words in the body of the Web page), the results obtained may not be particularly useful. Also keep in mind that, depending on the indexing scheme that the search engine is using, the found pages may actually no longer exist, leading the user to the dreaded ‘‘404 Not Found’’ error. Compounding this problem is the issue of coverage—the number of Web pages that any given search engine is actually able to survey and analyze. A comprehensive study by Lawrence and Giles (1998) indicates that the coverage provided by any of the search engines studied is both small and highly variable. For example, the HotBot engine produced 57.5% coverage of what was estimated to be the size of the ‘‘indexable Web,’’ whereas Lycos had only 4.41% coverage, a full order of magnitude less than HotBot. The most important conclusion from this study was that the extent of coverage increased as the number of search engines was increased and the results from those individual searches were combined. Combining the results obtained from the six search engines examined in this study produced coverage approaching 100%. To address this point, a new class of search engines called meta-search engines have been developed. These programs will take the user’s query and poll anywhere from 5–10 of the ‘‘traditional’’ search engines. The meta-search engine will then

T A B L E 1.3. Number of Hits Returned for Four Defined Search Queries on Some of the More Popular Search and Meta-Search Engines Search Engine Search Term

Meta-Search Engine

HotBot Excite Infoseek Lycos Google MetaCrawler SavvySearch

478 1,040 Genetic mapping 13,213 34,760 Human genome 735 279 Positional cloning 14,044 53,940 Prostate cancer

4,326 15,980 1,143 24,376

9,395 7,043 19,536 19,797 666 3,987 33,538 23,100

62 42 40 0

58 54 52 57

16


collect the results, filter out duplicates, and return a single, annotated list to the user. One big advantage is that the meta-search engines take relevance statistics into account, returning much smaller lists of results. Although the hit list is substantially smaller, it is much more likely to contain sites that directly address the original query. Because the programs must poll a number of different search engines, searches conducted this way obviously take longer to perform, but the higher degree of confidence in the compiled results for a given query outweighs the extra few minutes (and sometimes only seconds) of search time. Reliable and easy-to-use meta-search engines include MetaCrawler and Savvy Search.

INTERNET RESOURCES FOR TOPICS PRESENTED IN CHAPTER 1 DOMAIN NAMES gTLD-MOU Internet Software Consortium

http://www.gtld-mou.org http://www.isc.org

ELECTRONIC MAIL AND NEWSGROUPS BIOSCI Newsgroups http://www.bio.net/docs/biosci.FAQ.html Eudora http://www.eudora.com Microsoft Exchange http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/ NewsWatcher ftp://ftp.acns.nwu.edu/pub/newswatcher/ FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL Fetch 3.0/Mac LeechFTP/PC

http://www.dartmouth.edu/pages/softdev/fetch.html http://stud.fh-heilbronn.de/j˜debis/leechftp/

INTERNET ACCESS America Online AT&T Bell Atlantic Bell Canada CompuServe Ricochet Telus Worldcom

http://www.aol.com http://www.att.com/worldnet http://www.verizon.net http://www.bell.ca http://www.compuserve.com http://www.ricochet.net http://www.telus.net http://www. worldcom.com

VIRTUAL LIBRARIES EBI BioCatalog Amos’ WWW Links Page NAR Database Collection WWW Virtual Library

http://www.ebi.ac.uk/biocat/biocat.html http://www.expasy.ch/alinks.html http://www.nar.oupjournals.org http://mcb.harvard.edu/BioLinks.html

WORLD WIDE WEB BROWSERS Internet Explorer http://explorer.msn.com/home.htm Lynx ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/lynx Netscape Navigator http://home.netscape.com WORLD WIDE WEB SEARCH ENGINES AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Excite http://www.excite.com Google http://www.google.com

17

REFERENCES

HotBot Infoseek Lycos Northern Light

http://hotbot.lycos.com http://infoseek.go.com http://www.lycos.com http://www.northernlight.com

WORLD WIDE WEB META-SEARCH ENGINES MetaCrawler http://www.metacrawler.com Savvy Search http://www.savvysearch.com

REFERENCES Conner-Sax, K., and Krol, E. (1999). The Whole Internet: The Next Generation (Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly and Associates). Froehlich, F., and Kent, A. (1991). ARPANET, the Defense Data Network, and Internet. In Encyclopedia of Communications (New York: Marcel Dekker). Kennedy, A. J. (1999). The Internet: Rough Guide 2000 (London: Rough Guides). Lawrence, S., and Giles, C. L. (1998). Searching the World Wide Web. Science 280, 98–100. Quarterman, J. (1990). The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide (Bedford, MA: Digital Press). Rankin, B. (1996). Dr. Bob’s Painless Guide to the Internet and Amazing Things You Can Do With E-mail (San Francisco: No Starch Press).

2 THE NCBI DATA MODEL James M. Ostell National Center for Biotechnology Information National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland

Sarah J. Wheelan Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Baltimore, Maryland

Jonathan A. Kans National Center for Biotechnology Information National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland

INTRODUCTION Why Use a Data Model? Most biologists are familiar with the use of animal models to study human diseases. Although a disease that occurs in humans may not be found in exactly the same form in animals, often an animal disease shares enough attributes with a human counterpart to allow data gathered on the animal disease to be used to make inferences about the process in humans. Mathematical models describing the forces involved in musculoskeletal motions can be built by imagining that muscles are combinations of springs and hydraulic pistons and bones are lever arms, and, often times, 19

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such models allow meaningful predictions to be made and tested about the obviously much more complex biological system under consideration. The more closely and elegantly a model follows a real phenomenon, the more useful it is in predicting or understanding the natural phenomenon it is intended to mimic. In this same vein, some 12 years ago, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) introduced a new model for sequence-related information. This new and more powerful model made possible the rapid development of software and the integration of databases that underlie the popular Entrez retrieval system and on which the GenBank database is now built (cf. Chapter 7 for more information on Entrez). The advantages of the model (e.g., the ability to move effortlessly from the published literature to DNA sequences to the proteins they encode, to chromosome maps of the genes, and to the three-dimensional structures of the proteins) have been apparent for years to biologists using Entrez, but very few biologists understand the foundation on which this model is built. As genome information becomes richer and more complex, more of the real, underlying data model is appearing in common representations such as GenBank files. Without going into great detail, this chapter attempts to present a practical guide to the principles of the NCBI data model and its importance to biologists at the bench.

Some Examples of the Model The GenBank flatfile is a ‘‘DNA-centered’’ report, meaning that a region of DNA coding for a protein is represented by a ‘‘CDS feature,’’ or ‘‘coding region,’’ on the DNA. A qualifier (/translation=“MLLYY”) describes a sequence of amino acids produced by translating the CDS. A limited set of additional features of the DNA, such as mat peptide, are occasionally used in GenBank flatfiles to describe cleavage products of the (possibly unnamed) protein that is described by a /translation, but clearly this is not a satisfactory solution. Conversely, most protein sequence databases present a ‘‘protein-centered’’ view in which the connection to the encoding gene may be completely lost or may be only indirectly referenced by an accession number. Often times, these connections do not provide the exact codon-to-amino acid correspondences that are important in performing mutation analysis. The NCBI data model deals directly with the two sequences involved: a DNA sequence and a protein sequence. The translation process is represented as a link between the two sequences rather than an annotation on one with respect to the other. Protein-related annotations, such as peptide cleavage products, are represented as features annotated directly on the protein sequence. In this way, it becomes very natural to analyze the protein sequences derived from translations of CDS features by BLAST or any other sequence search tool without losing the precise linkage back to the gene. A collection of a DNA sequence and its translation products is called a Nuc-prot set, and this is how such data is represented by NCBI. The GenBank flatfile format that many readers are already accustomed to is simply a particular style of report, one that is more ‘‘human-readable’’ and that ultimately flattens the connected collection of sequences back into the familiar one-sequence, DNA-centered view. The navigation provided by tools such as Entrez much more directly reflects the underlying structure of such data. The protein sequences derived from GenBank translations that are returned by BLAST searches are, in fact, the protein sequences from the Nuc-prot sets described above.

INTRODUCTION

The standard GenBank format can also hide the multiple-sequence nature of some DNA sequences. For example, three genomic exons of a particular gene are sequenced, and partial flanking, noncoding regions around the exons may also be available, but the full-length sequences of these intronic sequences may not yet be available. Because the exons are not in their complete genomic context, there would be three GenBank flatfiles in this case, one for each exon. There is no explicit representation of the complete set of sequences over that genomic region; these three exons come in genomic order and are separated by a certain length of unsequenced DNA. In GenBank format there would be a Segment line of the form SEGMENT 1 of 3 in the first record, SEGMENT 2 of 3 in the second, and SEGMENT 3 of 3 in the third, but this only tells the user that the lines are part of some undefined, ordered series (Fig. 2.1A). Out of the whole GenBank release, one locates the correct Segment records to place together by an algorithm involving the LOCUS name. All segments that go together use the same first combination of letters, ending with the numbers appropriate to the segment, e.g., HSDDT1, HSDDT2, and HSDDT3. Obviously, this complicated arrangement can result in problems when LOCUS names include numbers that inadvertently interfere with such series. In addition, there is no one sequence record that describes the whole assembled series, and there is no way to describe the distance between the individual pieces. There is no segmenting convention in the EMBL sequence database at all, so records derived from that source or distributed in that format lack even this imperfect information. The NCBI data model defines a sequence type that directly represents such a segmented series, called a ‘‘segmented sequence.’’ Rather than containing the letters A, G, C, and T, the segmented sequence contains instructions on how it can be built from other sequences. Considering again the example above, the segmented sequence would contain the instructions ‘‘take all of HSDDT1, then a gap of unknown length, then all of HSDDT2, then a gap of unknown length, then all of HSDDT3.’’ The segmented sequence itself can have a name (e.g., HSDDT), an accession number, features, citations, and comments, like any other GenBank record. Data of this type are commonly stored in a so-called ‘‘Seg-set’’ containing the sequences HSDDT, HSDDT1, HSDDT2, HSDDT3 and all of their connections and features. When the GenBank release is made, as in the case of Nuc-prot sets, the Seg-sets are broken up into multiple records, and the segmented sequence itself is not visible. However, GenBank, EMBL, and DDBJ have recently agreed on a way to represent these constructed assemblies, and they will be placed in a new CON division, with CON standing for ‘‘contig’’ (Fig. 2.1B). In the Entrez graphical view of segmented sequences, the segmented sequence is shown as a line connecting all of its component sequences (Fig. 2.1C). An NCBI segmented sequence does not require that there be gaps between the individual pieces. In fact the pieces can overlap, unlike the case of a segmented series in GenBank format. This makes the segmented sequence ideal for representing large sequences such as bacterial genomes, which may be many megabases in length. This is what currently is done within the Entrez Genomes division for bacterial genomes, as well as other complete chromosomes such as yeast. The NCBI Software Toolkit (Ostell, 1996) contains functions that can gather the data that a segmented sequence refers to ‘‘on the fly,’’ including constituent sequence and features, and this information can automatically be remapped from the coordinates of a small, individual record to that of a complete chromosome. This makes it possible to provide graphical views, GenBank flatfile views, or FASTA views or to perform analyses on

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INTRODUCTION

whole chromosomes quite easily, even though data exist only in small, individual pieces. This ability to readily assemble a set of related sequences on demand for any region of a very large chromosome has already proven to be valuable for bacterial genomes. Assembly on demand will become more and more important as larger and larger regions are sequenced, perhaps by many different groups, and the notion that an investigator will be working on one huge sequence record becomes completely impractical.

What Does ASN.1 Have to Do With It? The NCBI data model is often referred to as, and confused with, the ‘‘NCBI ASN.1’’ or ‘‘ASN.1 Data Model.’’ Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ASN.1) is an International Standards Organization (ISO) standard for describing structured data that reliably encodes data in a way that permits computers and software systems of all types to reliably exchange both the structure and the content of the entries. Saying that a data model is written in ASN.1 is like saying a computer program is written in C or FORTRAN. The statement identifies the language; it does not say what the program does. The familiar GenBank flatfile was really designed for humans to read, from a DNA-centered viewpoint. ASN.1 is designed for a computer to read and is amenable to describing complicated data relationships in a very specific way. NCBI describes and processes data using the ASN.1 format. Based on that single, common format, a number of human-readable formats and tools are produced, such as Entrez, GenBank, and the BLAST databases. Without the existence of a common format such as this, the neighboring and hard-link relationships that Entrez depends on would not be possible. This chapter deals with the structure and content of the NCBI data model and its implications for biomedical databases and tools. Detailed discussions about the choice of ASN.1 for this task and its overall form can be found elsewhere (Ostell, 1995).

What to Define? We have alluded to how the NCBI data model defines sequences in a way that supports a richer and more explicit description of the experimental data than can be

< Figure 2.1. (A) Selected parts of GenBank-formatted records in a segmented sequence. GenBank format historically indicates merely that records are part of some ordered series; it offers no information on what the other components are or how they are connected. To see the complete view of these records, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=6849043&form=6&db=n&Dopt=g. (B) Representation of segmented sequences in the new CON (contig) division. A new extension of GenBank format allows the details of the construction of segmented records to be presented. The CONTIG line can include individual accessions, gaps of known length, and gaps of unknown length. The individual components can still be displayed in the traditional form, although no features or sequences are present in this format. (C) Graphical representation of a segmented sequence. This view displays features mapped to the coordinates of the segmented sequence. The segments include all exonic and untranslated regions plus 20 base pairs of sequence at the ends of each intron. The segment gaps cover the remaining intronic sequence.

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obtained with the GenBank format. The details of the model are important, and will be expanded on in the ensuing discussion. At this point, we need to pause and briefly describe the reasoning and general principles behind the model as a whole. There are two main reasons for putting data on a computer: retrieval and discovery. Retrieval is basically being able to get back out what was put in. Amassing sequence information without providing a way to retrieve it makes the sequence information, in essence, useless. Although this is important, it is even more valuable to be able to get back from the system more knowledge than was put in to begin with—that is, to be able to use the information to make biological discoveries. Scientists can make these kinds of discoveries by discerning connections between two pieces of information that were not known when the pieces were entered separately into the database or by performing computations on the data that offer new insight into the records. In the NCBI data model, the emphasis is on facilitating discovery; that means the data must be defined in a way that is amenable to both linkage and computation. A second, general consideration for the model is stability. NCBI is a US Government agency, not a group supported year-to-year by competitive grants. Thus, the NCBI staff takes a very long-term view of its role in supporting bioinformatics efforts. NCBI provides large-scale information systems that will support scientific inquiry well into the future. As anyone who is involved in biomedical research knows, many major conceptual and technical revolutions can happen when dealing with such a long time span. Somehow, NCBI must address these changing views and needs with software and data that may have been created years (or decades) earlier. For that reason, basic observations have been chosen as the central data elements, with interpretations and nomenclature (elements more subject to change) being placed outside the basic, core representation of the data. Taking all factors into account, NCBI uses four core data elements: bibliographic citations, DNA sequences, protein sequences, and three-dimensional structures. In addition, two projects (taxonomy and genome maps) are more interpretive but nonetheless are so important as organizing and linking resources that NCBI has built a considerable base in these areas as well.

PUBs: PUBLICATIONS OR PERISH Publication is at the core of every scientific endeavor. It is the common process whereby scientific information is reviewed, evaluated, distributed, and entered into the permanent record of scientific progress. Publications serve as vital links between factual databases of different structures or content domains (e.g., a record in a sequence database and a record in a genetic database may cite the same article). They serve as valuable entry points into factual databases (‘‘I have read an article about this, now I want to see the primary data’’). Publications also act as essential annotation of function and context to records in factual databases. One reason for this is that factual databases have a structure that is essential for efficient use of the database but may not have the representational capacity to set forward the full biological, experimental, or historical context of a particular record. In contrast, the published paper is limited only by language and contains much fuller and more detailed explanatory information than will ever be in a record in a factual database. Perhaps more importantly, authors are evaluated by

P U B s : P U B L I C AT I O N S O R P E R I S H

their scientific peers based on the content of their published papers, not by the content of the associated database records. Despite the best of intentions, scientists move on and database records become static, even though the knowledge about them has expanded, and there is very little incentive for busy scientists to learn a database system and keep records based on their own laboratory studies up to date. Generally, the form and content of citations have not been thought about carefully by those designing factual databases, and the quality, form, and content of citations can vary widely from one database to the next. Awareness of the importance of having a link to the published literature and the realization that bibliographic citations are much less volatile than scientific knowledge led to a decision that a careful and complete job of defining citations was a worthwhile endeavor. Some components of the publication specification described below may be of particular interest to scientists or users of the NCBI databases, but a full discussion of all the issues leading to the decisions governing the specifications themselves would require another chapter in itself.

Authors Author names are represented in many formats by various databases: last name only, last name and initials, last name-comma-initials, last name and first name, all authors with initials and the last with a full first name, with or without honorifics (Ph.D.) or suffixes (Jr., III), to name only a few. Some bibliographic databases (such as MEDLINE) might represent only a fixed number of authors. Although this inconsistency is merely ugly to a human reader, it poses severe problems for database systems incorporating names from many sources and providing functions as simple as looking up citations by author last name, such as Entrez does. For this reason, the specification provides two alternative forms of author name representation: one a simple string and the other a structured form with fields for last name, first name, and so on. When data are submitted directly to NCBI or in cases when there is a consistent format of author names from a particular source (such as MEDLINE), the structured form is used. When the form cannot be deciphered, the author name remains as a string. This limits its use for retrieval but at least allows data to be viewed when the record is retrieved by other means. Even the structured form of author names must support diversity, since some sources give only initials whereas others provide a first and middle name. This is mentioned to specifically emphasize two points. First, the NCBI data model is designed both to direct our view of the data into a more useful form and to accommodate the available existing data. (This pair of functions can be confusing to people reading the specification and seeing alternative forms of the same data defined.) Second, software developers must be aware of this range of representations and accommodate whatever form had to be used when a particular source was being converted. In general, NCBI tries to get as much of the data into a uniform, structured form as possible but carries the rest in a less optimal way rather than losing it altogether. Author affiliations (i.e., authors’ institutional addresses) are even more complicated. As with author names, there is the problem of supporting both structured forms and unparsed strings. However, even sources with reasonably consistent author name conventions often produce affiliation information that cannot be parsed from text into a structured format. In addition, there may be an affiliation associated with the whole

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author list, or there may be different affiliations associated with each author. The NCBI data model allows for both scenarios. At the time of this writing only the first form is supported in either MEDLINE or GenBank, both types may appear in published articles.

Articles The most commonly cited bibliographic entity in biological science is an article in a journal; therefore, the citation formats of most biological databases are defined with that type in mind. However, ‘‘articles’’ can also appear in books, manuscripts, theses, and now in electronic journals as well. The data model defines the fields necessary to cite a book, a journal, or a manuscript. An article citation occupies one field; other fields display additional information necessary to uniquely identify the article in the book, journal, or manuscript—the author(s) of the article (as opposed to the author or editor of the book), the title of the article, page numbers, and so on. There is an important distinction between the fields necessary to uniquely identify a published article from a citation and those necessary to describe the same article meaningfully to a database user. The NCBI Citation Matching Service takes fields from a citation and attempts to locate the article to which they refer. In this process, a successful match would involve only correctly matching the journal title, the year, the first page of the article, and the last name of an author of the article. Other information (e.g., article title, volume, issue, full pages, author list) is useful to look at but very often is either not available or outright incorrect. Once again, the data model must allow the minimum information set to come in as a citation, be matched against MEDLINE, and then be replaced by a citation having the full set of desired fields obtained from MEDLINE to produce accurate, useful data for consumption by the scientific public.

Patents With the advent of patented sequences it became necessary to cite a patent as a bibliographic entity instead of an article. The data model supports a very complete patent citation, a format developed in cooperation with the US Patent Office. In practice, however, patented sequences tend to have limited value to the scientific public. Because a patent is a legal document, not a scientific one, its purpose is to present and support the claims of the patent, not to fully describe the biology of the sequence itself. It is often prepared in a lawyer’s office, not by the scientist who did the research. The sequences presented in the patent may function only to illustrate some discreet aspect of the patent, rather than being the focus of the document. Organism information, location of biological features, and so on may not appear at all if they are not germane to the patent. Thus far, the vast majority of sequences appearing in patents also appear in a more useful form (to scientists) in the public databases. In NCBI’s view, the main purpose of listing patented sequences in GenBank is to be able to retrieve sequences by similarity searches that may serve to locate patents related to a given sequence. To make a legal determination in the case, however, one would still have to examine the full text of the patent. To evaluate the biology of the sequence, one generally must locate information other than that contained in the patent. Thus, the critical linkage is between the sequence and its patent number.

P U B s : P U B L I C AT I O N S O R P E R I S H

Additional fields in the patent citation itself may be of some interest, such as the title of the patent and the names of the inventors.

Citing Electronic Data Submission A relatively new class of citations comprises the act of data submission to a database, such as GenBank. This is an act of publication, similar but not identical to the publication of an article in a journal. In some cases, data submission precedes article publication by a considerable period of time, or a publication regarding a particular sequence may never appear in press. Because of this, there is a separate citation designed for deposited sequence data. The submission citation, because it is indeed an act of publication, may have an author list, showing the names of scientists who worked on the record. This may or may not be the same as the author list on a subsequently published paper also cited in the same record. In most cases, the scientist who submitted the data to the database is also an author on the submission citation. (In the case of large sequencing centers, this may not always be the case.) Finally, NCBI has begun the practice of citing the update of a record with a submission citation as well. A comment can be included with the update, briefly describing the changes made in the record. All the submission citations can be retained in the record, providing a history of the record over time.

MEDLINE and PubMed Identifiers Once an article citation has been matched to MEDLINE, the simplest and most reliable key to point to the article is the MEDLINE unique identifier (MUID). This is simply an integer number. NCBI provides many services that use MUID to retrieve the citation and abstract from MEDLINE, to link together data citing the same article, or to provide Web hyperlinks. Recently, in concert with MEDLINE and a large number of publishers, NCBI has introduced PubMed. PubMed contains all of MEDLINE, as well as citations provided directly by the publishers. As such, PubMed contains more recent articles than MEDLINE, as well as articles that may never appear in MEDLINE because of their subject matter. This development led NCBI to introduce a new article identifier, called a PubMed identifier (PMID). Articles appearing in MEDLINE will have both a PMID and an MUID. Articles appearing only in PubMed will have only a PMID. PMID serves the same purpose as MUID in providing a simple, reliable link to the citation, a means of linking records together, and a means of setting up hyperlinks. Publishers have also started to send information on ahead-of-print articles to PubMed, so this information may now appear before the printed journal. A new project, PubMed Central, is meant to allow electronic publication to occur in lieu of or ahead of publication in a traditional, printed journal. PubMed Central records contain the full text of the article, not just the abstract, and include all figures and references. The NCBI data model stores most citations as a collection called a Pub-equiv, a set of equivalent citations that includes a reliable identifier (PMID or MUID) and the citation itself. The presence of the citation form allows a useful display without an extra retrieval from the database, whereas the identifier provides a reliable key for linking or indexing the same citation in the record.

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SEQ-IDs: WHAT’S IN A NAME? The NCBI data model defines a whole class of objects called Sequence Identifiers (Seq-id). There has to be a whole class of such objects because NCBI integrates sequence data from many sources that name sequence records in different ways and where, of course, the individual names have different meanings. In one simple case, PIR, SWISS-PROT, and the nucleotide sequence databases all use a string called an ‘‘accession number,’’ all having a similar format. Just saying ‘‘A10234’’ is not enough to uniquely identify a sequence record from the collection of all these databases. One must distinguish ‘‘A10234’’ in SWISS-PROT from ‘‘A10234’’ in PIR. (The DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank nucleotide databases share a common set of accession numbers; therefore, ‘‘A12345’’ in EMBL is the same as ‘‘A12345’’ in GenBank or DDBJ.) To further complicate matters, although the sequence databases define their records as containing a single sequence, PDB records contain a single structure, which may contain more than one sequence. Because of this, a PDB Seq-id contains a molecule name and a chain ID to identify a single unique sequence. The subsections that follow describe the form and use of a few commonly used types of Seq-ids.

Locus Name The locus appears on the LOCUS line in GenBank and DDBJ records and in the ID line in EMBL records. These originally were the only identifier of a discrete GenBank record. Like a genetic locus name, it was intended to act both as a unique identifier for the record and as a mnemonic for the function and source organism of the sequence. Because the LOCUS line is in a fixed format, the locus name is restricted to ten or fewer numbers and uppercase letters. For many years in GenBank, the first three letters of the name were an organism code and the remaining letters a code for the gene (e.g., HUMHBB was used for ‘‘human ␤-globin region’’). However, as with genetic locus names, locus names were changed when the function of a region was discovered to be different from what was originally thought. This instability in locus names is obviously a problem for an identifier for retrieval. In addition, as the number of sequences and organisms represented in GenBank increased geometrically over the years, it became impossible to invent and update such mnemonic names in an efficient and timely manner. At this point, the locus name is dying out as a useful name in GenBank, although it continues to appear prominently on the first line of the flatfile to avoid breaking the established format.

Accession Number Because of the difficulties in using the locus/ID name as the unique identifier for a nucleotide sequence record, the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaborators (DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank) introduced the accession number. It intentionally carries no biological meaning, to ensure that it will remain (relatively) stable. It originally consisted of one uppercase letter followed by five digits. New accessions consist of two uppercase letters followed by six digits. The first letters were allocated to the individual collaborating databases so that accession numbers would be unique across the Collaboration (e.g., an entry beginning with a ‘‘U’’ was from GenBank). The accession number was an improvement over the locus/ID name, but, with use, problems and deficiencies became apparent. For example, although the accession

S E Q - I D s : W H AT ’ S I N A N A M E ?

is stable over time, many users noticed that the sequence retrieved by a particular accession was not always the same. This is because the accession identifies the whole database record. If the sequence in a record was updated (say by the insertion of 1000 bp at the beginning), the accession number did not change, as it was an updated version of the same record. If one had analyzed the original sequence and recorded that at position 100 of accession U00001 there was a putative protein-binding site, after the update a completely different sequence would be found at position 100! The accession number appears on the ACCESSION line of the GenBank record. The first accession on the line, called the ‘‘primary’’ accession, is the key for retrieving this record. Most records have only this type of accession number. However, other accessions may follow the primary accession on the ACCESSION line. These ‘‘secondary’’ accessions are intended to give some notion of the history of the record. For example, if U00001 and U00002 were merged into a single updated record, then U00001 would be the primary accession on the new record and U00002 would appear as a secondary accession. In standard practice, the U00002 record would be removed from GenBank, since the older record had become obsolete, and the secondary accessions would allow users to retrieve whatever records superseded the old one. It should also be noted that, historically, secondary accession numbers do not always mean the same thing; therefore, users should exercise care in their interpretations. (Policies at individual databases differed, and even shifted over time in a given database.) The use of secondary accession numbers also caused problems in that there was still not enough information to determine exactly what happened and why. Nonetheless, the accession number remains the most controlled and reliable way to point to a record in DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank.

gi Number In 1992, NCBI began assigning GenInfo Identifiers (gi) to all sequences processed into Entrez, including nucleotide sequences from DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank, the protein sequences from the translated CDS features, protein sequences from SWISS-PROT, PIR, PRF, PDB, patents, and others. The gi is assigned in addition to the accession number provided by the source database. Although the form and meaning of the accession Seq-id varied depending on the source, the meaning and form of the gi is the same for all sequences regardless of the source. The gi is simply an integer number, sometimes referred to as a GI number. It is an identifier for a particular sequence only. Suppose a sequence enters GenBank and is given an accession number U00001. When the sequence is processed internally at NCBI, it enters a database called ID. ID determines that it has not seen U00001 before and assigns it a gi number—for example, 54. Later, the submitter might update the record by changing the citation, so U00001 enters ID again. ID, recognizing the record, retrieves the first U00001 and compares its sequence with the new one. If the two are completely identical, ID reassigns gi 54 to the record. If the sequence differs in any way, even by a single base pair, it is given a new gi number, say 88. However, the new sequence retains accession number U00001 because of the semantics of the source database. At this time, ID marks the old record (gi 54) with the date it was replaced and adds a ‘‘history’’ indicating that it was replaced by gi 88. ID also adds a history to gi 88 indicating that it replaced gi 54. The gi number serves three major purposes:

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• It provides a single identifier across sequences from many sources. • It provides an identifier that specifies an exact sequence. Anyone who analyzes gi 54 and stores the analysis can be sure that it will be valid as long as U00001 has gi 54 attached to it. • It is stable and retrievable. NCBI keeps the last version of every gi number. Because the history is included in the record, anyone who discovers that gi 54 is no longer part of the GenBank release can still retrieve it from ID through NCBI and examine the history to see that it was replaced by gi 88. Upon aligning gi 54 to gi 88 to determine their relationship, a researcher may decide to remap the former analysis to gi 88 or perhaps to reanalyze the data. This can be done at any time, not just at GenBank release time, because gi 54 will always be available from ID. For these reasons, all internal processing of sequences at NCBI, from computing Entrez sequence neighbors to determining when new sequence should be processed or producing the BLAST databases, is based on gi numbers.

Accession.Version Combined Identifier Recently, the members of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (GenBank, EMBL, and DDBJ) introduced a ‘‘better’’ sequence identifier, one that combines an accession (which identifies a particular sequence record) with a version number (which tracks changes to the sequence itself). It is expected that this kind of Seq-id will become the preferred method of citing sequences. Users will still be able to retrieve a record based on the accession number alone, without having to specify a particular version. In that case, the latest version of the record will be obtained by default, which is the current behavior for queries using Entrez and other retrieval programs. Scientists who are analyzing sequences in the database (e.g., aligning all alcohol dehydrogenase sequences from a particular taxonomic group) and wish to have their conclusions remain valid over time will want to reference sequences by accession and the given version number. Subsequent modification of one of the sequences by its owner (e.g., 5⬘ extension during a study of the gene’s regulation) will result in the version number being incremented appropriately. The analysis that cited accession and version remains valid because a query using both the accession and version will return the desired record. Combining accession and version makes it clear to the casual user that a sequence has changed since an analysis was done. Also, determining how many times a sequence has changed becomes trivial with a version number. The accession.version number appears on the VERSION line of the GenBank flatfile. For sequence retrieval, the accession.version is simply mapped to the appropriate gi number, which remains the underlying tracking identifier at NCBI.

Accession Numbers on Protein Sequences The International Sequence Database Collaborators also started assigning accession.version numbers to protein sequences within the records. Previously, it was difficult to reliably cite the translated product of a given coding region feature, except

BIOSEQs: SEQUENCES

by its gi number. This limited the usefulness of translated products found in BLAST results, for example. These sequences will now have the same status as protein sequences submitted directly to the protein databases, and they have the benefit of direct linkage to the nucleotide sequence in which they are encoded, showing up as a CDS feature’s /protein id qualifier in the flatfile view. Protein accessions in these records consist of three uppercase letters followed by five digits and an integer indicating the version.

Reference Seq-id The NCBI RefSeq project provides a curated, nonredundant set of reference sequence standards for naturally occurring biological molecules, ranging from chromosomes to transcripts to proteins. RefSeq identifiers are in accession.version form but are prefixed with NC (chromosomes), NM (mRNAs), NP (proteins), or NT (constructed genomic contigs). The NG prefix will be used for genomic regions or gene clusters (e.g., immunoglobulin region) in the future. RefSeq records are a stable reference point for functional annotation, point mutation analysis, gene expression studies, and polymorphism discovery.

General Seq-id The General Seq-id is meant to be used by genome centers and other groups as a way of identifying their sequences. Some of these sequences may never appear in public databases, and others may be preliminary data that eventually will be submitted. For example, records of human chromosomes in the Entrez Genomes division contain multiple physical and genetic maps, in addition to sequence components. The physical maps are generated by various groups, and they use General Seq-ids to identify the proper group.

Local Seq-id The Local sequence identifier is most prominently used in the data submission tool Sequin (see Chapter 4). Each sequence will eventually get an accession. version identifier and a gi number, but only when the completed submission has been processed by one of the public databases. During the submission process, Sequin assigns a local identifier to each sequence. Because many of the software tools made by NCBI require a sequence identifier, having a local Seq-id allows the use of these tools without having to first submit data to a public database.

BIOSEQs: SEQUENCES The Bioseq, or biological sequence, is a central element in the NCBI data model. It comprises a single, continuous molecule of either nucleic acid or protein, thereby defining a linear, integer coordinate system for the sequence. A Bioseq must have at least one sequence identifier (Seq-id). It has information on the physical type of molecule (DNA, RNA, or protein). It may also have annotations, such as biological features referring to specific locations on specific Bioseqs, as well as descriptors.

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Descriptors provide additional information, such as the organism from which the molecule was obtained. Information in the descriptors describe the entire Bioseq. However, the Bioseq isn’t necessarily a fully sequenced molecule. It may be a segmented sequence in which, for example, the exons have been sequenced but not all of the intronic sequences have been determined. It could also be a genetic or physical map, where only a few landmarks have been positioned.

Sequences are the Same All Bioseqs have an integer coordinate system, with an integer length value, even if the actual sequence has not been completely determined. Thus, for physical maps, or for exons in highly spliced genes, the spacing between markers or exons may be known only from a band on a gel. Although the coordinates of a fully sequenced chromosome are known exactly, those in a genetic or physical map are a best guess, with the possibility of significant error from the ‘‘real’’ coordinates. Nevertheless, any Bioseq can be annotated with the same kinds of information. For example, a gene feature can be placed on a region of sequenced DNA or at a discrete location on a physical map. The map and the sequence can then be aligned on the basis of their common gene features. This greatly simplifies the task of writing software that can display these seemingly disparate kinds of data.

Sequences are Different Despite the benefits derived from having a common coordinate system, the different Bioseq classes do differ in the way they are represented. The most common classes (Fig. 2.2) are described briefly below. Virtual Bioseq. In the virtual Bioseq, the molecule type is known, and its length and topology (e.g., linear, circular) may also be known, but the actual sequence is not known. A virtual Bioseq can represent an intron in a genomic molecule in which only the exon sequences have been determined. The length of the putative sequence may be known only by the size of a band on an agarose gel.

> Figure 2.2. Classes of Bioseqs. All Bioseqs represent a single, continuous molecule of nucleic acid or protein, although the complete sequence may not be known. In a virtual Bioseq, the type of molecule is known, but the sequence is not known, and the precise length may not be known (e.g., from the size of a band on an electrophoresis gel). A raw Bioseq contains a single contiguous string of bases or residues. A segmented Bioseq points to its components, which are other raw or virtual Bioseqs (e.g., sequenced exons and undetermined introns). A constructed sequence takes its original components and subsumes them, resulting in a Bioseq that contains the string of bases or residues and a ‘‘history’’ of how it was built. A map Bioseq places genes or physical markers, rather than sequence, on its coordinates. A delta Bioseq can represent a segmented sequence but without the requirement of assigning identifiers to each component (including gaps of known length), although separate raw sequences can still be referenced as components. The delta sequence is used for unfinished high-throughput genome sequences (HTGS) from genome centers and for genomic contigs.

BIOSEQs: SEQUENCES

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Raw Bioseq. This is what most people would think of as a sequence, a single contiguous string of bases or residues, in which the actual sequence is known. The length is obviously known in this case, matching the number of bases or residues in the sequence. Segmented Bioseq. A segmented Bioseq does not contain raw sequences but instead contains the identifiers of other Bioseqs from which it is made. This type of Bioseq can be used to represent a genomic sequence in which only the exons are known. The ‘‘parts’’ in the segmented Bioseq would be the individual, raw Bioseqs representing the exons and the virtual Bioseqs representing the introns. Delta Bioseq. Delta Bioseqs are used to represent the unfinished high-throughput genome sequences (HTGS) derived at the various genome sequencing centers. Using delta Bioseqs instead of segmented Bioseqs means that only one Seq-id is needed for the entire sequence, even though subregions of the Bioseq are not known at the sequence level. Implicitly, then, even at the early stages of their presence in the databases, delta Bioseqs maintain the same accession number. Map Bioseq. Used to represent genetic and physical maps, a map Bioseq is similar to a virtual Bioseq in that it has a molecule type, perhaps a topology, and a length that may be a very rough estimate of the molecule’s actual length. This information merely supplies the coordinate system, a property of every Bioseq. Given this coordinate system for a genetic map, we estimate the positions of genes on it based on genetic evidence. The table of the resulting gene features is the essential data of the map Bioseq, just as bases or residues constitute the raw Bioseq’s data.

BIOSEQ-SETs: COLLECTIONS OF SEQUENCES A biological sequence is often most appropriately stored in the context of other, related sequences. For example, a nucleotide sequence and the sequences of the protein products it encodes naturally belong in a set. The NCBI data model provides the Bioseq-set for this purpose. A Bioseq-set can have a list of descriptors. When packaged on a Bioseq, a descriptor applies to all of that Bioseq. When packaged on a Bioseq-set, the descriptor applies to every Bioseq in the set. This arrangement is convenient for attaching publications and biological source information, which are expected on all sequences but frequently are identical within sets of sequences. For example, both the DNA and protein sequences are obviously from the same organism, so this descriptor information can be applied to the set. The same logic may apply to a publication. The most common Bioseq-sets are described in the sections that follow.

Nucleotide/Protein Sets The Nuc-prot set, containing a nucleotide and one or more protein products, is the type of set most frequently produced by a Sequin data submission. The component Bioseqs are connected by coding sequence region (CDS) features that describe how translation from nucleotide to protein sequence is to proceed. In a traditional nucleotide or protein sequence database, these records might have cross-references to each

S E Q - A N N O T: A N N O TAT I N G T H E S E Q U E N C E

other to indicate this relationship. The Nuc-prot set makes this explicit by packaging them together. It also allows descriptive information that applies to all sequences (e.g., the organism or publication citation) to be entered once (see Seq-descr: Describing the Sequence, below).

Population and Phylogenetic Studies A major class of sequence submissions represent the results of population or phylogenetic studies. Such research involves sequencing the same gene from a number of individuals in the same species (population study) or in different species (phylogenetic study). An alignment of the individual sequences may also be submitted (see Seq-align: Alignments, below). If the gene encodes a protein, the components of the Population or Phylogenetic Bioseq-set may themselves be Nuc-prot sets.

Other Bioseq-sets A Seg set contains a segmented Bioseq and a Parts Bioseq-set, which in turn contains the raw Bioseqs that are referenced by the segmented Bioseq. This may constitute the nucleotide component of a Nuc-prot set. An Equiv Bioseq-set is used in the Entrez Genomes division to hold multiple equivalent Bioseqs. For example, human chromosomes have one or more genetic maps, physical maps derived by different methods and a segmented Bioseq on which ‘‘islands’’ of sequenced regions are placed. An alignment between the various Bioseqs is made based on references to any available common markers.

SEQ-ANNOT: ANNOTATING THE SEQUENCE A Seq-annot is a self-contained package of sequence annotations or information that refers to specific locations on specific Bioseqs. It may contain a feature table, a set of sequence alignments, or a set of graphs of attributes along the sequence. Multiple Seq-annots can be placed on a Bioseq or on a Bioseq-set. Each Seqannot can have specific attribution. For example, PowerBLAST (Zhang and Madden, 1997) produces a Seq-annot containing sequence alignments, and each Seq-annot is named based on the BLAST program used (e.g., BLASTN, BLASTX, etc.). The individual blocks of alignments are visible in the Entrez and Sequin viewers. Because the components of a Seq-annot have specific references to locations on Bioseqs, the Seq-annot can stand alone or be exchanged with other scientists, and it need not reside in a sequence record. The scope of descriptors, on the other hand, does depend on where they are packaged. Thus, information about Bioseqs can be created, exchanged, and compared independently of the Bioseq itself. This is an important attribute of the Seq-annot and of the NCBI data model.

Seq-feat: Features A sequence feature (Seq-feat) is a block of structured data explicitly attached to a region of a Bioseq through one or two sequence locations (Seq-locs). The Seq-feat itself can carry information common to all features. For example, there are flags to indicate whether a feature is partial (i.e., goes beyond the end of the sequence of

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the Bioseq), whether there is a biological exception (e.g., RNA editing that explains why a codon on the genomic sequence does not translate to the expected amino acid), and whether the feature was experimentally determined (e.g., an mRNA was isolated from a proposed coding region). A feature must always have a location. This is the Seq-loc that states where on the sequence the feature resides. A coding region’s location usually starts at the ATG and ends at the terminator codon. The location can have more than one interval if it is on a genomic sequence and mRNA splicing occurs. In cases of alternative splicing, separate coding region features are created, with one multi-interval Seq-loc for each isolated molecular species. Optionally, a feature may have a product. For a coding region, the product Seqloc points to the resulting protein sequence. This is the link that allows the data model to separately maintain the nucleotide and protein sequences, with annotation on each sequence appropriate to that molecule. An mRNA feature on a genomic sequence could have as its product an mRNA Bioseq whose sequence reflects the results of posttranscriptional RNA editing. Features also have information unique to the kind of feature. For example, the CDS feature has fields for the genetic code and reading frame, whereas the tRNA feature has information on the amino acid transferred. This design completely modularizes the components required by each feature type. If a particular feature type calls for a new field, no other field is affected. A new feature type, even a very complex one, can be added without changing the existing features. This means that software used to display feature locations on a sequence need consider only the location field common to all features. Although the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank feature table allows numerous kinds of features to be included (see Chapter 3), the NCBI data model treats some features as ‘‘more equal’’ than others. Specifically, certain features directly model the central dogma of molecular biology and are most likely to be used in making connections between records and in discovering new information by computation. These features are discussed next. Genes. A gene is a feature in its own right. In the past, it was merely a qualifier on other features. The Gene feature indicates the location of a gene, a heritable region of nucleic acid sequence that confers a measurable phenotype. That phenotype may be achieved by many components of the gene being studied, including, but not limited to, coding regions, promoters, enhancers, and terminators. The Gene feature is meant to approximately cover the region of nucleic acid considered by workers in the field to be the gene. This admittedly fuzzy concept has an appealing simplicity, and it fits in well with higher-level views of genes such as genetic maps. It has practical utility in the era of large genomic sequencing when a biologist may wish to see just the ‘‘xyz gene’’ and not a whole chromosome. The Gene feature may also contain cross-references to genetic databases, where more detailed information on the gene may be found. RNAs. An RNA feature can describe both coding intermediates (e.g., mRNAs) and structural RNAs (e.g., tRNAs, rRNAs). The locations of an mRNA and the corresponding coding region (CDS) completely determine the locations of 5⬘ and 3⬘ untranslated regions (UTRs), exons, and introns.


Coding Regions. A Coding Region (CDS) feature in the NCBI data model can be thought of as ‘‘instructions to translate’’ a nucleic acid into its protein product, via a genetic code (Fig. 2.3). A coding region serves as a link between the nucleotide and protein. It is important to note that several situations can provide exceptions to the classical colinearity of gene and protein. Translational stuttering (ribosomal slippage), for example, merely results in the presence of overlapping intervals in the feature’s location Seq-loc. The genetic code is assumed to be universal unless explicitly given in the Coding Region feature. When the genetic code is not followed at specific positions in the sequence—for example, when alternative initiation codons are used in the first position, when suppressor tRNAs bypass a terminator, or when selenocysteine is added —the Coding Region feature allows these anomalies to be indicated. Proteins. A Protein feature names (or at least describes) a protein or proteolytic product of a protein. A single protein Bioseq may have many Protein features on it. It may have one over its full length describing a pro-peptide, the primary product of translation. (The name in this feature is used for the /product qualifier in the CDS feature that produces the protein.) It may have a shorter protein feature describing the mature peptide or, in the case of viral polyproteins, several mature peptide features. Signal peptides that guide a protein through a membrane may also be indicated.

Figure 2.3. The Coding Region (CDS) feature links specific regions on a nucleotide sequence with its encoded protein product. All features in the NCBI data model have a ‘‘location’’ field, which is usually one or more intervals on a sequence. (Multiple intervals on a CDS feature would correspond to individual exons.) Features may optionally have a ‘‘product’’ field, which for a CDS feature is the entirety of the resulting protein sequence. The CDS feature also contains a field for the genetic code. This appears in the GenBank flat file as a /transl table qualifier. In this example, the Bacterial genetic code (code 11) is indicated. A CDS may also have translation exceptions indicating that a particular residue is not what is expected, given the codon and the genetic code. In this example, residue 196 in the protein is selenocysteine, indicated by the /transl except qualifier. NCBI software includes functions for converting between codon locations and residue locations, using the CDS as its guide. This capability is used to support the historical conventions of GenBank format, allowing a signal peptide, annotated on the protein sequence, to appear in the GenBank flat file with a location on the nucleotide sequence.

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Others. Several other features are less commonly used. A Region feature provides a simple way to name a region of a chromosome (e.g., ‘‘major histocompatibility complex’’) or a domain on a polypeptide. A Bond feature annotates a bond between two residues in a protein (e.g., disulfide). A Site feature annotates a known site (e.g., active, binding, glycosylation, methylation, phosphorylation). Finally, numerous features exist in the table of legal features, covering many aspects of biology. However, they are less likely than the above-mentioned features to be used for making connections between records or for making discoveries based on computation.

Seq-align: Alignments Sequence alignments simply describe the relationships between biological sequences by designating portions of sequences that correspond to each other. This correspondence can reflect evolutionary conservation, structural similarity, functional similarity, or a random event. An alignment can be generated algorithmically by software (e.g., BLAST produces a Seq-annot containing one or more Seq-aligns) or directly by a scientist (e.g., one who is submitting an aligned population study using a favorite alignment tool and a submission program like Sequin; cf. Chapter 4). The Seq-align is designed to capture the final result of the process, not the process itself. Aligned regions can be given scores according to the probability that the alignment is a chance occurrence. Regardless of how or why an alignment is generated or what its biological significance may be, the data model records, in a condensed format, which regions of which sequences are said to correspond. The fundamental unit of an alignment is a segment, which is defined as an unbroken region of the alignment. In these segments, each sequence is present either without gaps or is not present at all (completely gapped). The alignment below has four segments, delineated by vertical lines: MRLTLLC-------EGEEGSELPLCASCGQRIELKYKPECYPDVKNSLHV MRLTLLCCTWREERMGEEGSELPVCASCGQRLELKYKPECFPDVKNSIHA MRLTCLCRTWREERMGEEGSEIPVCASCGQRIELKYKPE----------| | | | | Note that mismatches do not break a segment; only a gap opening or closing event will force the creation of a new segment. By structuring the alignment in this fashion, it can be saved in condensed form. The data representation records the start position in sequence coordinates for each sequence in a segment and the length of the segment. If a sequence is gapped in a segment, its start position is - 1. Note that this representation is independent of the actual sequence; that is, nucleotide and protein alignments are represented the same way, and only the score of an alignment gives a clue as to how many matches and mismatches are present in the data.

The Sequence Is Not the Alignment Note that the gaps in the alignment are not actually represented in the Bioseqs as dashes. A fundamental property of the genetic code is that it is ‘‘commaless’’ (Crick et al., 1961). That is, there is no ‘‘punctuation’’ to distinguish one codon from the


next or to keep translation in the right frame. The gene is a contiguous string of nucleotides. We remind the reader that sequences themselves are also ‘‘gapless.’’ Gaps are shown only in the alignment report, generated from the alignment data; they are used only for comparison.

Classes of Alignments Alignments can exist by themselves or in sets and can therefore represent quite complicated relationships between sequences. A single alignment can only represent a continuous and linear correspondence, but a set of alignments can denote a continuous, discontinuous, linear, or nonlinear relationship among sequences. Alignments can also be local, meaning that only portions of the sequences are included in the alignment, or they can be global, so that the alignment completely spans all the sequences involved. A continuous alignment does not have regions that are unaligned; that is, for each sequence in the alignment, each residue between the lowest-numbered and highest-numbered residues of the alignment is also contained in the alignment. More simply put, there are no pieces missing. Because such alignments are necessarily linear, they can be displayed with one sequence on each line, with gaps representing deletions or insertions. To show the differences from a ‘‘master’’ sequence, one of the sequences can be displayed with no gaps and no insertions; the remaining sequences can have gaps or inserted segments (often displayed above or below the rest of the sequence), as needed. If pairwise, the alignment can be displayed in a square matrix as a squiggly line traversing the two sequences. A discontinuous alignment contains regions that are unaligned. For example, the alignment below is a set of two local alignments between two protein sequences. The regions in between are simply not aligned at all: 12 MA-TLICCTWREGRMG 26 45 KPECFPDVKNSIHV 58 15 MRLTLLCCTWREERMG 30 35 KPECFPDAKNSLHV 48 This alignment could be between two proteins that have two matching (but not identical) structural domains linked by a divergent segment. There is simply no alignment for the regions that are not shown above. A discontinuous alignment can be linear, like the one in the current example, so that the sequences can still be shown one to a line without breaking the residue order. More complicated discontinuous alignments may have overlapping segments, alignments on opposite strands (for nucleotides), or repeated segments, so that they cannot be displayed in linear order. These nonlinear alignments are the norm and can be displayed in square matrices (if pairwise), in lists of aligned regions, or by complex shading schemes.

Data Representations of Alignments A continuous alignment can be represented as a single list of coordinates, as described above. Depending on whether the alignment spans all of the sequences, it can be designated global or local. Discontinuous alignments must be represented as sets of alignments, each of which is a single list of coordinates. The regions between discontinuous alignments are not represented at all in the data, and, to display these regions, the missing pieces

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must be calculated. If the alignment as a whole is linear, the missing pieces can be fairly simply calculated from the boundaries of the aligned regions. A discontinuous alignment is usually local, although if it consists of several overlapping pieces it may in fact represent a global correspondence between the sequences.

Seq-graph: Graphs Graphs are the third kind of annotation that can go into Seq-annots. A Seq-graph defines some continuous set of values over a defined interval on a Bioseq. It can be used to show properties like G + C content, surface potential, hydrophobicity, or base accuracy over the length of the sequence.

SEQ-DESCR: DESCRIBING THE SEQUENCE A Seq-descr is meant to describe a Bioseq (or Bioseq-set) and place it in its biological and/or bibliographic context. Seq-descrs apply to the whole Bioseq or to the whole of each Bioseq in the Bioseq-set to which the Seq-descr is attached. Descriptors were introduced in the NCBI data model to reduce redundant information in records. For example, the protein products of a nucleotide sequence should always be from the same biological source (organism, tissue) as the nucleotide itself. And the publication that describes the sequencing of the DNA in many cases also discusses the translated proteins. By placement of these items as descriptors at the Nuc-prot set level, only one copy of each item is needed to properly describe all the sequences.

BioSource: The Biological Source The BioSource includes information on the source organism (scientific name and common name), its lineage in the NCBI integrated taxonomy, and its nuclear and (if appropriate) mitochondrial genetic code. It also includes information on the location of the sequence in the cell (e.g., nuclear genome or mitochondrion) and additional modifiers (e.g., strain, clone, isolate, chromosomal map location). A sequence record for a gene and its protein product will typically have a single BioSource descriptor at the Nuc-prot set level. A population or phylogenetic study, however, will have BioSource descriptors for each component. (The components can be nucleotide Bioseqs or they can themselves be Nuc-prot sets.) The BioSources in a population study will have the same organism name and usually will be distinguished from each other by modifier information, such as strain or clone name.

MolInfo: Molecule Information The MolInfo descriptor indicates the type of molecule [e.g., genomic, mRNA (usually isolated as cDNA), rRNA, tRNA, or peptide], the technique with which it was sequenced (e.g., standard, EST, conceptual translation with partial peptide sequencing for confirmation), and the completeness of the sequence [e.g., complete, missing the left (5⬘ or amino) end, missing both ends]. Each nucleotide and each protein should get its own MolInfo descriptor. Normally, then, this descriptor will not appear at-

USING THE MODEL

tached at the Nuc-prot set level. (It may go on a Seg set, since all parts of a segmented Bioseq should be of the same type.)

USING THE MODEL There are a number of consequences of using the NCBI data model for building databases and generating reports. Some of these are discussed in the remainder of this section.

GenBank Format GenBank presents a ‘‘DNA-centered’’ view of a sequence record. (GenPept presents the equivalent ‘‘protein-centered’’ view.) To maintain compatibility with these historical views, some mappings are performed between features on different sequences or between overlapping features on the same sequence. In GenBank format, the protein product of a coding region feature is displayed as a /translation qualifier, not as a sequence that can have its own features. The largest protein feature on the product Bioseq is used as the /product qualifier. Some of the features that are actually annotated on the protein Bioseq in the NCBI data model, such as mature peptide or signal peptide, are mapped onto the DNA coordinate system (through the CDS intervals) in GenBank format. The Gene feature names a region on a sequence, typically covering anything known to affect that gene’s phenotype. Other features contained in this region will pick up a /gene qualifier from the Gene feature. Thus, there is no need to separately annotate the /gene qualifier on the other features.

FASTA Format FASTA format contains a definition line and sequence characters and may be used as input to a variety of analysis programs (see Chapter 3). The definition line starts with a right angle bracket (>) and is usually followed by the sequence identifiers in a parsable form, as in this example: >gi|2352912|gb|AF012433.1|HSDDT2 The remainder of the definition line, which is usually a title for the sequence, can be generated by software from features and other information in a Nuc-prot set. For a segmented Bioseq, each raw Bioseq part can be presented separately, with a dash separating the segments. (The regular BLAST search service uses this method for producing search databases, so that the resulting ‘‘hits’’ will map to individual GenBank records.) The segmented Bioseq can also be treated as a single sequence, in which case the raw components will be catenated. (This form is used for generating the BLAST neighbors in Entrez; see Chapter 7.)

BLAST The Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST; Altschul et al., 1990) is a popular method of ascertaining sequence similarity. The BLAST program takes a query se-

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quence supplied by the user and searches it against the entire database of sequences maintained at NCBI. The output for each ‘‘hit’’ is a Seq-align, and these are combined into a Seq-annot. (Details on performing BLAST searches can be found in Chapter 8.) The resulting Seq-annot can be used to generate the traditional BLAST printed report, but it is much more useful when viewed with software tools such as Entrez and Sequin. The viewer in these programs is now designed to display alignment information in useful forms. For example, the Graphical view shows only insertions and deletions relative to the query sequence, whereas the Alignment view fetches the individual sequences and displays mismatches between bases or residues in aligned regions. The Sequence view shows the alignment details at the level of individual bases or residues. This ability to zoom in from an overview to fine details makes it much easier to see the relationships between sequences than with a single report. Finally, the Seq-annot, or any of its Seq-aligns, can be passed to other tools (such as banded or gapped alignment programs) for refinement. The results may then be sent back into a display program.

Entrez The Entrez sequence retrieval program (Schuler et al., 1996; cf. Chapter 7) was designed to take advantage of connections that are captured by the NCBI data model. For example, the publication in a sequence record may contain a MEDLINE UID or PubMed ID. These are direct links to the PubMed article, which Entrez can retrieve. In addition, the product Seq-loc of a Coding Region feature points to the protein product Bioseq, which Entrez can also retrieve. The links in the data model allow retrieval of linked records at the touch of a button. The Genomes division in Entrez takes further advantage of the data model by providing ‘‘on the fly’’ display of certain regions of large genomes, as is the case when one hits the ProtTable button in Web Entrez.

Sequin Sequin is a submission tool that takes raw sequence data and other biological information and assembles a record (usually a Bioseq-set) for submission to one of the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases (Chapter 4). It makes full use of the NCBI data model and takes advantage of redundant information to validate entries. For example, because the user supplies both the nucleotide and protein sequences, Sequin can determine the coding region location (one or more intervals on the nucleotide that, through the genetic code, produce the protein product). It compares the translation of the coding region to the supplied protein and reports any discrepancy. It also makes sure that each Bioseq has BioSource information applied to it. This requirement can be satisfied for a nucleotide and its protein products by placing a single BioSource descriptor on the Nuc-prot set. Sequin’s viewers are all interactive, in that double-clicking on an existing item (shown as a GenBank flatfile paragraph or a line in the graphical display of features on a sequence) will launch an editor for that item (e.g., feature, descriptor, or sequence data).

REFERENCES

LocusLink LocusLink is an NCBI project to link information applicable to specific genetic loci from several disparate databases. Information maintained by LocusLink includes official nomenclature, aliases, sequence accessions (particularly RefSeq accessions), phenotypes, Enzyme Commission numbers, map information, and Mendelian Inheritance in Man numbers. Each locus is assigned a unique identification number, which additional databases can then reference. LocusLink is described in greater detail in Chapter 7.

CONCLUSIONS The NCBI data model is a natural mapping of how biologists think of sequence relationships and how they annotate these sequences. The data that results can be saved, passed to other analysis programs, modified, and then displayed, all without having to go through multiple format conversions. The model definition concentrates on fundamental data elements that can be measured in a laboratory, such as the sequence of an isolated molecule. As new biological concepts are defined and understood, the specification for data can be easily expanded without the need to change existing data. Software tools are stable over time, and only incremental changes are needed for a program to take advantage of new data fields. Separating the specification into domains (e.g., citations, sequences, structures, maps) reduces the complexity of the data model. Providing neighbors and links between individual records increases the richness of the data and enhances the likelihood of making discoveries from the databases.

REFERENCES Altschul, S. F., Gish, W., Miller, W., Meyers, E. W., and Lipman, D. J. (1990). Basic Local Alignment Search Tool. J. Mol. Biol. 215, 403–410. Crick, F. H. C., Barnett, L., Brenner, S., and Watts-Tobin, R. J. (1961). General nature of the genetic code for proteins. Nature 192, 1227–1232. Ostell, J. M. (1995). Integrated access to heterogeneous biomedical data from NCBI. IEEE Eng. Med. Biol. 14, 730–736. Ostell, J. M. (1996). The NCBI software tools. In Nucleic Acid and Protein Analysis: A Practical Approach, M. Bishop and C. Rawlings, Eds. (IRL Press, Oxford), p. 31–43. Schuler, G. D., Epstein, J. A., Ohkawa, H., and Kans, J. A. (1996). Entrez: Molecular biology database and retrieval system. Methods Enzymol. 266, 141–162. Zhang, J., and Madden, T. L. (1997). Power BLAST: A new network BLAST application for interactive or automated sequence analysis and annotation. Genome Res. 7, 649–656.

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3 THE GENBANK SEQUENCE DATABASE Ilene Karsch-Mizrachi National Center for Biotechnology Information National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland

B. F. Francis Ouellette Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics Children’s and Women’s Health Centre of British Columbia University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia

INTRODUCTION Primary protein and nucleic acid sequence databases are so pervasive to our way of thinking in molecular biology that few of us stop to wonder how these ubiquitous tools are built. Understanding how the these databases are put together will allow us to move forward in our understanding of biology and in fully harvesting the abstracted information present in these records. GenBank, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) genetic sequence database, is an annotated collection of all publicly available nucleotide and protein sequences. The records within GenBank represent, in most cases, single, contiguous stretches of DNA or RNA with annotations. GenBank files are grouped into divisions; some of these divisions are phylogenetically based, whereas others are based on the technical approach that was used to generate the sequence information. Presently, all records in GenBank are generated from direct submissions to the DNA sequence 45

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databases from the original authors, who volunteer their records to make the data publicly available or do so as part of the publication process. GenBank, which is built by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), is part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, along with its two partners, the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ, Mishima, Japan) and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) nucleotide database from the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI, Hinxton, UK). All three centers provide separate points of data submission, yet all three centers exchange this information daily, making the same database (albeit in slightly different format and with different information systems) available to the community at-large. This chapter describes how the GenBank database is structured, how it fits into the realm of the protein databases, and how its various components are interpreted by database users. Numerous works have dealt with the topic of sequence databases (Bairoch and Apweiller, 2000; Baker et al., 2000; Barker et al., 2000; Benson et al., 2000; Mewes et al., 2000; Tateno et al., 1997). These publications emphasize the great rate at which the databases have grown, and they suggest various ways of utilizing such vast biological resources. From a practical scientific point of view, as well as from a historical perspective, the sequence data have been separated into protein and nucleotide databases. The nucleotides are the primary entry points to the databases for both protein and nucleotide sequences, and there appears to be a migration toward having the nucleotide databases also involved in ‘‘managing’’ the protein data sets, as will be illustrated below. This is not a surprising development, since submitters are encouraged to provide annotation for the coding sequence (CDS) feature, the feature that tells how a translation product is produced. This trend toward the comanagement of protein and nucleotide sequences is apparent from the nucleotide sequences available through Entrez (cf. Chapter 7) as well as with GenBank and the formatting of records in the GenPept format. It is also apparent at EBI, where SWISS-PROT and TREMBL are being comanaged along with EMBL nucleotide databases. Nonetheless, the beginnings of each database set are distinct. Also implicit in the discussion of this chapter is the underlying data model described in Chapter 2. Historically, the protein databases preceded the nucleotide databases. In the early 1960s, Dayhoff and colleagues collected all of the protein sequences known at that time; these sequences were catalogued as the Atlas of Protein Sequences and Structures (Dayhoff et al., 1965). This printed book laid the foundation for the resources that the entire bioinformatics community now depends on for day-to-day work in computational biology. A data set, which in 1965 could easily reside on a single floppy disk (although these did not exist then), represented years of work from a small group of people. Today, this amount of data can be generated in a fraction of a day. The advent of the DNA sequence databases in 1982, initiated by EMBL, led to the next phase, that of the explosion in database sequence information. Joined shortly thereafter by GenBank (then managed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory), both centers were contributing to the input activity, which consisted mainly of transcribing what was published in the printed journals to an electronic format more appropriate for use with computers. The DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) joined the data-collecting collaboration a few years later. In 1988, following a meeting of these three groups (now referred to as the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration), there was an agreement to use a common format for data elements within a unit record and to have each database update only the records that

F O R M AT V S . C O N T E N T: C O M P U T E R S V S . H U M A N S

were directly submitted to it. Now, all three centers are collecting direct submissions and distributing them so that each center has copies of all of the sequences, meaning that they can act as a primary distribution center for these sequences. However, each record is owned by the database that created it and can only be updated by that database, preventing ‘‘update clashes’’ that are bound to occur when any database can update any record.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY DATABASES Although this chapter is about the GenBank nucleotide database, GenBank is just one member of a community of databases that includes three important protein databases: SWISS-PROT, the Protein Information Resource (PIR), and the Protein DataBank (PDB). PDB, the database of nucleic acid and protein structures, is described in Chapter 5. SWISS-PROT and PIR can be considered secondary databases, curated databases that add value to what is already present in the primary databases. Both SWISS-PROT and PIR take the majority of their protein sequences from nucleotide databases. A small proportion of SWISS-PROT sequence data is submitted directly or enters through a journal-scanning effort, in which the sequence is (quite literally) taken directly from the published literature. This process, for both SWISSPROT and PIR, has been described in detail elsewhere (Bairoch and Apweiller, 2000; Barker et al., 2000.) As alluded to above, there is an important distinction between primary (archival) and secondary (curated) databases. The most important contribution that the sequence databases make to the scientific community is making the sequences themselves accessible. The primary databases represent experimental results (with some interpretation) but are not a curated review. Curated reviews are found in the secondary databases. GenBank nucleotide sequence records are derived from the sequencing of a biological molecule that exists in a test tube, somewhere in a lab. They do not represent sequences that are a consensus of a population, nor do they represent some other computer-generated string of letters. This framework has consequences in the interpretation of sequence analysis. In most cases, all a researcher will need is a given sequence. Each such DNA and RNA sequence will be annotated to describe the analysis from experimental results that indicate why that sequence was determined in the first place. One common type of annotation on a DNA sequence record is the coding sequence (CDS). A great majority of the protein sequences have not been experimentally determined, which may have downstream implications when analyses are performed. For example, the assignment of a product name or function qualifier based on a subjective interpretation of a similarity analysis can be very useful, but it can sometimes be misleading. Therefore, the DNA, RNA, or protein sequences are the ‘‘computable’’ items to be analyzed and represent the most valuable component of the primary databases.

FORMAT VS. CONTENT: COMPUTERS VS. HUMANS Database records are used to hold raw sequence data as well as an array of ancillary annotations. In a survey of the various database formats, we can observe that, although different sets of rules are applied, it is still possible in many cases to inter-

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change data among formats. The best format for a human to read may not be the most efficient for a computer program. The simplicity of the flat file, which does lend itself to simple tools that are available to all, is in great part responsible for the popularity of the EMBL and GenBank flatfile formats. In its simplest form, a DNA sequence record can be represented as a string of nucleotides with some tag or identifier. Here is a nucleotide file as represented in a FASTA (or Pearson format) file: >L04459 GCAGCGCACGACAGCTGTGCTATCCCGGCGAGCCCGTGGCAGAGGACCTCGCTTGCGAAAGCATCGAGTACC GCTACAGAGCCAACCCGGTGGACAAACTCGAAGTCATTGTGGACCGAATGAGGCTCAATAACGAGATTAGCG ACCTCGAAGGCCTGCGCAAATATTTCCACTCCTTCCCGGGTGCTCCTGAGTTGAACCCGCTTAGAGACTCCG AAATCAACGACGACTTCCACCAGTGGGCCCAGTGTGACCGCCACACTGGACCCCATACCACTTCTTTTTGTT ATTCTTAAATATGTTGTAACGCTATGTAATTCCACCCTTCATTACTAATAATTAGCCATTCACGTGATCTCA GCCAGTTGTGGCGCCACACTTTTTTTTCCATAAAAATCCTCGAGGAAAAGAAAAGAAAAAAATATTTCAGTT ATTTAAAGCATAAGATGCCAGGTAGATGGAACTTGTGCCGTGCCAGATTGAATTTTGAAAGTACAATTGAGG CCTATACACATAGACATTTGCACCTTATACATATAC

Similarly, for a protein record, the FASTA record would appear as follows: >P31373 MTLQESDKFATKAIHAGEHVDVHGSVIEPISLSTTFKQSSPANPIGTYEYSRSQNPNRENLERAVAALENAQ YGLAFSSGSATTATILQSLPQGSHAVSIGDVYGGTHRYFTKVANAHGVETSFTNDLLNDLPQLIKENTKLVW IETPTNPTLKVTDIQKVADLIKKHAAGQDVILVVDNTFLSPYISNPLNFGADIVVHSATKYINGHSDVVLGV LATNNKPLYERLQFLQNAIGAIPSPFDAWLTHRGLKTLHLRVRQAALSANKIAEFLAADKENVVAVNYPGLK THPNYDVVLKQHRDALGGGMISFRIKGGAEAASKFASSTRLFTLAESLGGIESLLEVPAVMTHGGIPKEARA SGVFDDLVRISVGIEDTDDLLEDIKQALKQATN

The FASTA format is used in a variety of molecular biology software suites. In its simplest incarnation (as shown above) the ‘‘greater than’’ character (>) designates the beginning of a new file. An identifier (L04459 in the first of the preceding examples) is followed by the DNA sequence in lowercase or uppercase letters, usually with 60 characters per line. Users and databases can then, if they wish, add a certain degree of complexity to this format. For example, without breaking any of the rules just outlined, one could add more information to the FASTA definition line, making the simple format a little more informative, as follows: >gi|171361|gb|L04459|YSCCYS3A Saccharomyces cerevisiae cystathionine gamma-lyase (CYS3) gene, complete cds. GCAGCGCACGACAGCTGTGCTATCCCGGCGAGCCCGTGGCAGAGGACCTCGCTTGCGAAAGCATCGAGTACC GCTACAGAGCCAACCCGGTGGACAAACTCGAAGTCATTGTGGACCGAATGAGGCTCAATAACGAGATTAGCG ACCTCGAAGGCCTGCGCAAATATTTCCACTCCTTCCCGGGTGCTCCTGAGTTGAACCCGCTTAGAGACTCCG AAATCAACGACGACTTCCACCAGTGGGCCCAGTGTGACCGCCACACTGGACCCCATACCACTTCTTTTTGTT ATTCTTAAATATGTTGTAACGCTATGTAATTCCACCCTTCATTACTAATAATTAGCCATTCACGTGATCTCA GCCAGTTGTGGCGCCACACTTTTTTTTCCATAAAAATCCTCGAGGAAAAGAAAAGAAAAAAATATTTCAGTT ATTTAAAGCATAAGATGCCAGGTAGATGGAACTTGTGCCGTGCCAGATTGAATTTTGAAAGTACAATTGAGG CCTATACACATAGACATTTGCACCTTATACATATAC

This modified FASTA file now has the gi number (see below and Chapter 2), the GenBank accession number, the LOCUS name, and the DEFINITION line from the GenBank record. The record was passed from the underlying ASN.1 record (see Appendix 3.2), which NCBI uses to actually store and maintain all its data.

T H E G E N B A N K F L AT F I L E : A D I S S E C T I O N

Over the years, many file formats have come and gone. Tools exist to convert the sequence itself into the minimalist view of one format or another. NCBI’s asn2ff (ASN.1 to flatfile) will convert an ASN.1 file into a variety of flatfiles. The asn2ff program will generate GenBank, EMBL, GenPept, SWISS-PROT, and FASTA formats and is available from the NCBI Toolkit. READSEQ is another tool that has been widely used and incorporated into many work environments. Users should be aware that the features from a GenBank or EMBL format may be lost when passed through such utilities. Programs that need only the sequence (e.g., BLAST; see Chapter 8) are best used with a FASTA format for the query sequence. Although less informative than other formats, the FASTA format offers a simple way of dealing with the primary data in a human- and computer-readable fashion.

THE DATABASE A full release of GenBank occurs on a bimonthly schedule with incremental (and nonincremental) daily updates available by anonymous FTP. The International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration also exchanges new and updated records daily. Therefore, all sequences present in GenBank are also present in DDBJ and EMBL, as described in the introduction to this chapter. The three databases rely on a common data format for information described in the feature table documentation (see below). This represents the lingua franca for nucleotide sequence database annotations. Together, the nucleotide sequence databases have developed defined submission procedures (see Chapter 4), a series of guidelines for the content and format of all records. As mentioned above, nucleotide records are often the primary source of sequence and biological information from which protein sequences in the protein databases are derived. There are three important consequences of not having the correct or proper information on the nucleotide record: • If a coding sequence is not indicated on a nucleic acid record, it will not be represented in the protein databases. Thus, because querying the protein databases is the most sensitive way of doing similarity discoveries (Chapter 8), failure to indicate the CDS intervals on an mRNA or genomic sequence of interest (when one should be present) may cause important discoveries to be missed. • The set of features usable in the nucleotide feature table that are specific to protein sequences themselves is limited. Important information about the protein will not be entered in the records in a ‘‘parsable place.’’ (The information may be present in a note, but it cannot reliably be found in the same place under all circumstances.) • If a coding feature on a nucleotide record contains incorrect information about the protein, this could be propagated to other records in both the nucleotide and protein databases on the basis of sequence similarity.

THE GENBANK FLATFILE: A DISSECTION The GenBank flatfile (GBFF) is the elementary unit of information in the GenBank database. It is one of the most commonly used formats in the representation of

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biological sequences. At the time of this writing, it is the format of exchange from GenBank to the DDBJ and EMBL databases and vice versa. The DDBJ flatfile format and the GBFF format are now nearly identical to the GenBank format (Appendix 3.1). Subtle differences exist in the formatting of the definition line and the use of the gene feature. EMBL uses line-type prefixes, which indicate the type of information present in each line of the record (Appendix 3.2). The feature section (see below), prefixed with FT, is identical in content to the other databases. All these formats are really reports from what is represented in a much more structured way in the underlying ASN.1 file. The GBFF can be separated into three parts: the header, which contains the information (descriptors) that apply to the whole record; the features, which are the annotations on the record; and the nucleotide sequence itself. All major nucleotide database flat files end with // on the last line of the record.

The Header The header is the most database-specific part of the record. The various databases are not obliged to carry the same information in this segment, and minor variations exist, but some effort is made to ensure that the same information is carried from one to the other. The first line of all GBFFs is the Locus line: LOCUS

AF111785

5925 bp

mRNA

PRI

01-SEP-1999

The first element on this line is the locus name. This element was historically used to represent the locus that was the subject of the record, and submitters and database staff spent considerable time in devising it so that it would serve as a mnemonic. Characters after the first can be numerical or alphabetic, and all letters are uppercase. The locusname was most useful back when most DNA sequence records represented only one genetic locus, and it was simple to find in GenBank a unique name that could represent the biology of the organism in a few letters and numbers. Classic examples include HUMHBB for the human ␤-globin locus or SV40 for the Simian virus (one of the copies anyway; there are many now). To be usable, the locus name needs to be unique within the database; because virtually all the meaningful designators have been taken, the LOCUS name has passed its time as a useful format element. Nowadays, this element must begin with a letter, and its length cannot exceed 10 characters. Because so many software packages rely on the presence of a unique LOCUS name, the databases have been reluctant to remove it altogether. The preferred path has been to instead put a unique word, and the simplest way to do this has been to use an accession number of ensured uniqueness: AF111785 in the example above conforms to the locus name requirement. The second item on the locus line is the length of the sequence. Sequences can range from 1 to 350,000 base pairs (bp) in a single record. In practice, GenBank and the other databases seldom accept sequences shorter than 50 bp; therefore, the inclusion of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers as sequences (i.e., submissions of 24 bp) is discouraged. The 350 kb limit is a practical one, and the various databases represent longer contigs in a variety of different and inventive ways (see Chapters 2 and 6 and Appendix 3.3). Records of greater than 350 kb are acceptable in the database if the sequence represents a single gene.


The third item on the locus line indicates the molecule type. The ‘‘mol type’’ usually is DNA or RNA, and it can also indicate the strandedness (single or double, as ss or ds, respectively); however, these attributes are rarely used these days (another historical leftover). The acceptable mol types are DNA, RNA, tRNA, rRNA, mRNA, and uRNA and are intended to represent the original biological molecule. For example, a cDNA that is sequenced really represents an mRNA, and mRNA is the indicated mol type for such a sequence. If the tRNA or rRNA has been sequenced directly or via some cDNA intermediate, then tRNA or rRNA is shown as the mol type. If the ribosomal RNA gene sequence was obtained via the PCR from genomic DNA, then DNA is the mol type, even if the sequence encodes a structural RNA. The fourth item on the locus line is the GenBank division code: three letters, which have either taxonomic inferences or other classification purposes. Again, these codes exist for historical reasons, recalling the time when the various GenBank divisions were used to break up the database files into what was then a more manageable size. The GenBank divisions are slightly different from those of EMBL or DDBJ, as described elsewhere (Ouellette and Boguski, 1997). NCBI has not introduced additional organism-based divisions in quite a few years, but new, functionbased divisions have been very useful because they represent functional and definable sequence types (Ouellette and Boguski, 1997). The Expressed Sequence Tags (EST) division was introduced in 1993 (Boguski et al., 1993) and was soon followed by a division for Sequence Tagged Sites (STS). These, along with the Genome Survey Sequences (GSS) and unfinished, High Throughput Genome sequences (HTG), represent functional categories that need to be dealt with by the users and the database staff in very different ways. For example, a user can query these data sets specifically (e.g., via a BLASTN search against the EST or HTG division). Knowing that the hit is derived from a specific technique-oriented database allows one to interpret the data accordingly. At this time, GenBank, EMBL, and DDBJ interpret the various functional divisions in the same way, and all data sets are represented in the same division from one database to the next. The CON division is a new division for constructed (or ‘‘contigged’’) records. This division contains segmented sets as well as all large assemblies, which may exceed (sometimes quite substantially) the 350,000-bp limit presently imposed on single records. Such records may take the form shown in Appendix 3.3. The record from the CON division shown in Appendix 3.3 gives the complete genomic sequence of Mycoplasma pneumoniae, which is more than 800,000 base pairs in length. This CON record does not include sequences or annotations; rather, it includes instructions on how to assemble pieces present in other divisions into larger or assembled pieces. Records within the CON division have accession and version numbers and are exchanged, like all other records within the collaboration. The date on the locus line is the date the record was last made public. If the record has not been updated since being made public, the date would be the date that it was first made public. If any of the features or annotations were updated and the record was rereleased, then the date corresponds to the last date the entry was released. Another date contained in the record is the date the record was submitted (see below) to the database. It should be noted that none of these dates is legally binding on the promulgating organization. The databases make no claim that the dates are error-free; they are included as guides to users and should not be submitted in any arbitration dispute. To the authors’ knowledge, they have never been used in establishing priority and publication dates for patent application.

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DEFINITION Homo sapiens myosin heavy chain IIx/d mRNA, complete cds.

The definition line (also referred to as the ‘‘def line’’) is the line in the GenBank record that attempts to summarize the biology of the record. This is the line that appears in the FASTA files that NCBI generates and is what is seen in the summary line for BLAST hits generated from a BLAST similarity search (Chapter 8). Much care is taken in the generation of these lines, and, although many of them can be generated automatically from the features in the record, they are still reviewed by the database staff to make sure that consistency and richness of information are maintained. Nonetheless, it is not always possible to capture all the biology in a single line of text, and databases cope with this in a variety of ways. There are some agreements in force between the databases, and the databases are aware of each other’s guidelines and try to conform to them. The generalized syntax for an mRNA definition line is as follows: Genus species product name (gene symbol) mRNA, complete cds. The generalized syntax for a genomic record is Genus species product name (gene symbol) gene, complete cds. Of course, records of many other types of data are accounted for by the guidelines used by the various databases. The following set of rules, however, applies to organelle sequences, and these rules are used to ensure that the biology and source of the DNA are clear to the user and to the database staff (assuming they are clear to the submitter): DEFINITION Genus species protein X(xxx) gene, complete cds; [one choice from below], OR DEFINITION Genus species XXS ribosomal RNA gene, complete sequence; [one choice from below]. nuclear gene(s) for mitochondrial product(s) nuclear gene(s) for chloroplast product(s) mitochondrial gene(s) for mitochondrial product(s) chloroplast gene(s) for chloroplast product(s)

In accordance with a recent agreement among the collaborative databases, the full genus-species names are given in the definition lines; common names (e.g., human) or abbreviated genus names (e.g., H. sapiens for Homo sapiens) are no longer used. The many records in the database that precede this agreement will eventually be updated. One organism has escaped this agreement: the human immunodeficiency virus is to be represented in the definition line as HIV1 and HIV2. ACCESSION

AF111785

The accession number, on the third line of the record, represents the primary key to reference a given record in the database. This is the number that is cited in publications and is always associated with this record; that is, if the sequence is updated (e.g., by changing a single nucleotide), the accession number will not change. At this time, accession numbers exist in one of two formats: the ‘‘1 + 5’’


and ‘‘2 + 6’’ varieties, where 1 + 5 indicates one uppercase letter followed by five digits and 2 + 6 is two letters plus six digits. Most of the new records now entering the databases are of the latter variety. All GenBank records have only a single line with the word ACCESSION on it; however, there may be more than one accession number. The vast majority of records only have one accession number. This number is always referred to as the primary accession number; all others are secondary. In cases where more than one accession number is shown, the first accession number is the primary one. Unfortunately, secondary accession numbers have meant a variety of things over the years, and no single definition applies. The secondary accession number may be related to the primary one, or the primary accession number may be a replacement for the secondary, which no longer exists. There is an ongoing effort within the Collaboration to make the latter the default for all cases, but, because secondary accession numbers have been used for more than 15 years (a period during which the management of GenBank changed), all data needed to elucidate all cases are not available. ACCESSION VERSION

AF111785 AF111785.1 GI:4808814

The version line contains the Accession.version and the gi (geninfo identifier). These identifiers are associated with a unique nucleotide sequence. Protein sequences also have accession numbers (protein ids). These are also represented as Accession.version and gi numbers for unique sequences (see below). If the sequence changes, the version number in the Accession.version will be incremented by one and the gi will change (although not by one, but to the next available integer). The accession number stays the same. The example above shows version 1 of the sequence having accession number AF111785 and gi number 4808814. KEYWORDS The keywords line is another historical relic that is, in many cases, unfortunately misused. Adding keywords to an entry is often not very useful because over the years so many authors have selected words not on a list of controlled vocabulary and not uniformly applied to the whole database. NCBI, therefore, discourages the use of keywords but will include them on request, especially if the words are not present elsewhere in the record or are used in a controlled fashion (e.g., for EST, STS, GSS, and HTG records). At this time, the resistance to adding keywords is a matter of policy at NCBI/GenBank only. SOURCE human. ORGANISM Homo sapiens Eukaryota; Metazoa; Chordata; Craniata; Vertebrata; Mammalia; Eutheria; Primates; Catarrhini; Hominidae; Homo. The source line will either have the common name for the organism or its scientific name. Older records may contain other source information (see below) in this field. A concerted effort is now under way to assure that all other information present in the source feature (as opposed to the source line) and all lines in the taxonomy block (source and organism lines) can be derived from what is in the source feature

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and the taxonomy server at NCBI. Those interested in the lineage and other aspects of the taxonomy are encouraged to visit the taxonomy home page at NCBI. This taxonomy database is used by all nucleotide sequence databases, as well as SWISSPROT. REFERENCE 1 (bases 1 to 5925) AUTHORS Weiss,A., McDonough,D., Wertman,B., Acakpo-Satchivi,L., Montgomery,K., Kucherlapati,R., Leinwand,L. and Krauter,K. TITLE Organization of human and mouse skeletal myosin heavy chain gene clusters is highly conserved JOURNAL Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 96 (6), 2958-2963 (1999) MEDLINE 99178997 PUBMED 10077619

Each GenBank record must have at least one reference or citation. It offers scientific credit and sets a context explaining why this particular sequence was determined. In many cases, the record will have two or more reference blocks, as shown in Appendix 3.1. The preceding sample indicates a published paper. There is a MEDLINE and PubMed identifier present that provides a link to the MEDLINE/ PubMed databases (see Chapter 7). Other references may be annotated as unpublished (which could be ‘‘submitted) or as placeholders for a publication, as shown. REFERENCE 1 (bases 1 to 3291) AUTHORS Morcillo, P., Rosen, C.,Baylies, M.K. and Dorsett, D. TITLE CHIP, a widely expressed chromosomal protein required for remote enhancer activity and segmentation in Drosophila JOURNAL Unpublished REFERENCE 3 (bases 1 to 5925) AUTHORS Weiss,A. and Leinwand,L.A. TITLE Direct Submission JOURNAL Submitted (09-DEC-1998) MCDB, University of Colorado at Boulder, Campus Box 0347, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0347, USA

The last citation is present on most GenBank records and gives scientific credit to the people responsible for the work surrounding the submitted sequence. It usually includes the postal address of the first author or the lab where the work was done. The date represents the date the record was submitted to the database but not the date on which the data were first made public, which is the date on the locus line if the record was not updated. Additional submitter blocks may be added to the record each time the sequences are updated. The last part of the header section in the GBFF is the comment. This section includes a great variety of notes and comments (also called ‘‘descriptors’’) that refer to the whole record. Genome centers like to include their contact information in this section as well as give acknowledgments. This section is optional and not found in most records in GenBank. The comment section may also include E-mail addresses or URLs, but this practice is discouraged at NCBI (although certain exceptions have been made for genome centers as mentioned above). The simple reason is that E-mail addresses tend to change more than the postal addresses of buildings. DDBJ has been including E-mail addresses for some years, again representing a subtle difference in policy. The comment section also contains information about the history


of the sequence. If the sequence of a particular record is updated, the comment will contain a pointer to the previous version of the record. COMMENT On Dec 23, 1999 this sequence version replaced gi:4454562.

Alternatively, if you retrieve an earlier version of the record, this comment will point forward to the newer version of the sequence and also backward if there was an earlier still version COMMENT [WARNING] On Dec 23, 1999 this sequence was replaced by a newer version gi:6633795.

The Feature Table The middle segment of the GBFF record, the feature table, is the most important direct representation of the biological information in the record. One could argue that the biology is best represented in the bibliographic reference, cited by the record. Nonetheless, a full set of annotations within the record facilitates quick extraction of the relevant biological features and allows the submitter to indicate why this record was submitted to the database. What becomes relevant here is the choice of annotations presented in this section. The GenBank feature table documentation describes in great detail the legal features (i.e., the ones that are allowed) and what qualifiers are permitted with them. This, unfortunately, has often invited an excess of invalid, speculative, or computed annotations. If an annotation is simply computed, its usefulness as a comment within the record is diminished. Described below are some of the key GenBank features, with information on why they are important and what information can be extracted from them. The discussion here is limited to the biological underlyings of these features and guidelines applied to this segment by the NCBI staff. This material will also give the reader some insight into the NCBI data model (Chapter 2) and the important place the GBFF occupies in the analysis of sequences, serving also to introduce the concept of features and qualifiers in GenBank language. The features are slightly different from other features discussed in Chapter 2. In the GBFF report format, any component of this section designated as ‘‘feature.’’ In the NCBI data model, ‘‘features’’ refer to annotations that are on a part of the sequences, whereas annotations that describe the whole sequence are called ‘‘descriptors.’’ Thus, the source feature in the GenBank flatfile is really a descriptor in the data model view (the BioSource, which refers to the whole sequence), not a feature as used elsewhere. Because this is a chapter on the GenBank database, the ‘‘feature’’ will refer to all components of the feature table. The readers should be aware of this subtle difference, especially when referring to other parts of this book. The Source Feature. The source feature is the only feature that must be present on all GenBank records. All features have a series of legal qualifiers, some of which are mandatory (e.g., /organism for source). All DNA sequence records have some origin, even if synthetic in the extreme case. In most cases, there will be a single source feature, and it will contain the /organism. Here is what we have in the example from Appendix 3.1:

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source 1..5925 /organism=“Homo sapiens” /db xref=“taxon:9606” /chromosome=“17” /map=“17p13.1” /tissue type=“skeletal muscle” The organism qualifier contains the scientific genus and species name. In some cases, ‘‘organisms’’ can be described at the subspecies level. For the source feature, the series of qualifiers will contain all matters relating to the BioSource, and these may include mapping, chromosome or tissue from which the molecule that was sequenced was obtained, clone identification, and other library information. For the source feature, as is true for all features in a GenBank record, care should be taken to avoid adding superfluous information to the record. For the reader of these records, anything that cannot be computationally validated should be taken with a grain of salt. Tissue source and library origin are only as good as the controls present in the associated publication (if any such publication exists) and only insofar as that type of information is applied uniformly across all records in GenBank. With sets of records in which the qualifiers are applied in a systematic way, as they are for many large EST sets, the taxonomy can be validated (i.e., the organism does exist in the database of all organisms that is maintained at the NCBI). If, in addition, the qualifier is applied uniformly across all records, it is of value to the researcher. Unfortunately, however, many qualifiers are derived without sufficient uniformity across the database and hence are of less value. Implicit in the BioSource and the organism that is assigned to it is the genetic code used by the DNA/RNA, which will be used to translate the nucleic acid to represent the protein sequence (if one is present in the record). This information is shown on the CDS feature. The CDS Feature. The CDS feature contains instructions to the reader on how to join two sequences together or on how to make an amino acid sequence from the indicated coordinates and the inferred genetic code. The GBFF view, being as DNAcentric as it is, maps all features through a DNA sequence coordinate system, not that of amino acid reference points, as in the following example from GenBank accession X59698 (contributed by a submission to EMBL). sig peptide 160..231 CDS 160..>2301 /codon start=1 /product=“EGF-receptor” /protein id=“CAA42219.1” /db xref=“GI:50804” /db xref=“MGD:MGI:95294” /db xref=“SWISS-PROT:Q01279” /translation=“MRPSGTARTTLLVLLTALCAAGGALEEKKVCQGTSNRLTQLGTF EDHFLSLQRMYNNCEVVLGNLEITYVQRNYDLSFLKTIQEVAGYVLIALNTVERIPLE NLQIIRGNALYENTYALAILSNYGTNRTGLRELPMRNLQEILIGAVRFSNNPILCNMD TIQWRDIVQNVFMSNMSMDLQSHPSSCPKCDPSCPNGSCWGGGEENCQKLTKIICAQQ CSHRCRGRSPSDCCHNQCAAGCTGPRESDCLVCQKFQDEATCKDTCPPLMLYNPTTYQ MDVNPEGKYSFGATCVKKCPRNYVVTDHGSCVRACGPDYYEVEEDGIRKCKKCDGPCR


KVCNGIGIGEFKDTLSINATNIKHFKYCTAISGDLHILPVAFKGDSFTRTPPLDPREL EILKTVKEITGFLLIQAWPDNWTDLHAFENLEIIRGRTKQHGQFSLAVVGLNITSLGL RSLKEISDGDVIISGNRNLCYANTINWKKLFGTPNQKTKIMNNRAEKDCKAVNHVCNP LCSSEGCWGPEPRDCVSCQNVSRGRECVEKWNILEGEPREFVENSECIQCHPECLPQA MNITCTGRGPDNCIQCAHYIDGPHCVKTCPAGIMGENNTLVWKYADANNVCHLCHANC TYGCAGPGLQGCEVWPSGPKIPSIATGIVGGLLFIVVVALGIGLFMRRRHIVRKRTLR RLLQERELVEPLTPSGEAPNQAHLRILKETEF” mat peptide 232..>2301 /product=“EGF-receptor”

This example also illustrates the use of the database cross-reference (db xref). This controlled qualifier allows the databases to cross-reference the sequence in question to an external database (the first identifier) with an identifier used in that database. The list of allowed db xref databases is maintained by the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration. /protein id=“CAA42219.1” /db xref=“GI:50804” As mentioned above, NCBI assigns an accession number and a gi (geninfo) identifier to all sequences. This means that translation products, which are sequences in their own right (not simply attachments to a DNA record, as they are shown in a GenBank record), also get an accession number (/protein id) and a gi number. These unique identifiers will change when the sequence changes. Each protein sequence is assigned a protein id or protein accession number. The format of this accession number is ‘‘3 + 5,’’ or three letters and five digits. Like the nucleotide sequence accession number, the protein accession number is represented as Accession.version. The protein gi numbers appear as a gi db xref. When the protein sequence in the record changes, the version of the accession number is incremented by one and the gi is also changed. Thus, the version number of the accession number presents the user with an easy way to look up the previous version of the record, if one is present. Because amino acid sequences represent one of the most important by-products of the nucleotide sequence database, much attention is devoted to making sure they are valid. (If a translation is present in a GenBank record, there are valid coordinates present that can direct the translation of nucleotide sequence.) These sequences are the starting material for the protein databases and offer the most sensitive way of making new gene discoveries (Chapter 8). Because these annotations can be validated, they have added value, and having the correct identifiers also becomes important. The correct product name, or protein name, can be subjective and often is assigned via weak similarities to other poorly annotated sequences, which themselves have poor annotations. Thus, users should be aware of potential circular amplification of paucity of information. A good rule is that more information is usually obtained from records describing single genes or full-length mRNA sequences with which a published paper is associated. These records usually describe the work from a group that has studied a gene of interest in some detail. Fortunately, quite a few records of these types are in the database, representing a foundation of knowledge used by many. The Gene Feature. The gene feature, which has been explicitly included in the GenBank flatfile for only a few years, has nevertheless been implicitly in use

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since the beginning of the databases as a gene qualifier on a number of other features. By making this a separate feature, the de facto status has been made explicit, greatly facilitating the generation and validation of components now annotated with this feature. The new feature has also clearly shown in its short existence that biologists have very different definitions and uses for the gene feature in GenBank records. Although it is obvious that not all biologists will agree on a single definition of the gene feature, at its simplest interpretation, the gene feature represents a segment of DNA that can be identified with a name (e.g., the MyHC gene example from Appendix 3.1) or some arbitrary number, as is often used in genome sequencing project (e.g., T23J18.1 from GenBank accession number AC011661). The gene feature allows the user to see the gene area of interest and in some cases to select it. The RNA Features. The various structural RNA features can be used to annotate RNA on genomic sequences (e.g., mRNA, rRNA, tRNA). Although these are presently not instantiated into separate records as protein sequences are, these sequences (especially the mRNA) are essential to our understanding of how higher genomes are organized. RNAs deserves special mention because they represent biological entities that can be measured in the lab and thus are pieces of information of great value for a genomic record and are often mRNA records on their own. This is in contrast to the promoter feature, which is poorly characterized, unevenly assigned in a great number of records, poorly defined from a biology point of view, and of lesser use in a GenBank record. The RNA feature on a genomic record should represent the experimental evidence of the presence of that biological molecule.

CONCLUDING REMARKS The DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank database is the most commonly used nucleotide and protein sequence database. It represents a public repository of molecular biology information. Knowing what the various fields mean and how much biology can be obtained from these records greatly advances our understanding of this file format. Although the database was never meant to be read from computers, an army of computer-happy biologists have nevertheless parsed, converted, and extracted these records by means of entire suites of programs. THE DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank flatfile remains the format of exchange between the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration members, and this is unlikely to change for years to come, despite the availability of better, richer alternatives, such as the data described in ASN.1. However, therein lays the usefulness of the present arrangement: it is a readily available, simple format which can represent some abstraction of the biology it wishes to depict.

INTERNET RESOURCES FOR TOPICS PRESENTED IN CHAPTER 3 GenBank Release Notes READSEQ Sequence Conversion Tool Taxonomy Browser

ftp://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/gbrel.txt http://magpie.bio.indiana.edu/MolecularBiology/Molbio archive/readseq/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/tax.html

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TREMBL and Swiss-Prot http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ebi docs/swissprot db/ Release Notes documentation.html

REFERENCES Bairoch, A., and Apweiler, R. (2000). The SWISS-PROT protein sequence data bank and its supplement TrEMBL. Nucl. Acids Res. 28, 45–48. Baker, W., van den Broek, A., Camon, E., Hingamp, P., Sterk, P., Stoesser, G., and Tuli, M. A. (2000). The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database. Nucl. Acids Res. 28, 19–23. Barker, W. C., Garavelli, J. S., Huang, H., McGarvey, P. B., Orcutt, B. C., Srinivasarao, G. Y., Xiao, C., Yeh, L. S., Ledley, R. S., Janda, J. F., Pfeiffer, F., Mewes, H.-W., Tsugita, A., and Wu, C. (2000). The Protein Information Resource (PIR). Nucl. Acids Res. 28, 41–44. Benson, D. A., Karsch-Mizrachi, I., Lipman, D. J., Ostell, J., Rapp, B. A. and Wheeler, D. L. (1997). GenBank. Nucl. Acids Res. 25, 1–6. Boguski, M. S., Lowe, T. M., Tolstoshev, C. M. (1993). dbEST—database for ‘‘expressed sequence tags.’’ Nat. Genetics 4: 332–333. Cook-Deagan, R. (1993). The Gene Wars. Science, Politics and the HumanGenome (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company). Dayhoff, M. O., Eck, R. V., Chang, M. A., Sochard, M. R. (1965). Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure. (National Biomedical Research Foundation, Silver Spring MD). Mewes, H. W., Frischman, D., Gruber, C., Geier, B., Haase, D., Kaps, A., Lemcke, K., Mannhaupt, G., Pfeiffer, F., Schuller, C., Stocker, S., and Weil, B. (2000). MIPS: A database for genomes and protein sequences. Nucl. Acids Res. 28, 37–40. Ouellette, B. F. F., and Boguski, M. S. (1997). Database divisions and homology search files: a guide for the perplexed. Genome Res. 7, 952–955. Schuler, G. D., Epstein, J. A., Ohkawa, H., Kans, J. A. (1996). Entrez: Molecular biology database and retrieval system. Methods Enzymol. 266, 141–162. Tateno, Y., Miyazaki, S., Ota, M., Sugawara, H., and Gojobori, T. (1997). DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) in collaboration with mass sequencing teams. Nucl. Acids Res. 28, 24– 26.

APPENDICES Appendix 3.1. Example of GenBank Flatfile Format LOCUS DEFINITION ACCESSION VERSION KEYWORDS SOURCE ORGANISM

REFERENCE AUTHORS TITLE JOURNAL MEDLINE PUBMED

AF111785 5925 bp mRNA PRI 01-SEP-1999 Homo sapiens myosin heavy chain IIx/d mRNA, complete cds. AF111785 AF111785.1 GI:4808814 . human. Homo sapiens Eukaryota; Metazoa; Chordata; Craniata; Vertebrata; Euteleostomi; Mammalia; Eutheria; Primates; Catarrhini; Hominidae; Homo. 1 (bases 1 to 5925) Weiss,A., McDonough,D., Wertman,B., Acakpo-Satchivi,L., Montgomery,K., Kucherlapati,R., Leinwand,L. and Krauter,K. Organization of human and mouse skeletal myosin heavy chain gene clusters is highly conserved Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 96 (6), 2958-2963 (1999) 99178997 10077619

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REFERENCE AUTHORS TITLE JOURNAL MEDLINE PUBMED REFERENCE AUTHORS TITLE JOURNAL FEATURES source

CDS

2 (bases 1 to 5925) Weiss,A., Schiaffino,S. and Leinwand,L.A. Comparative sequence analysis of the complete human sarcomeric myosin heavy chain family: implications for functional diversity J. Mol. Biol. 290 (1), 61-75 (1999) 99318869 10388558 3 (bases 1 to 5925) Weiss,A. and Leinwand,L.A. Direct Submission Submitted (09-DEC-1998) MCDB, University of Colorado at Boulder, Campus Box 0347, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0347, USA Location/Qualifiers 1..5925 /organism=“Homo sapiens” /db xref=“taxon:9606” /chromosome=“17” /map=“17p13.1” /tissue type=“skeletal muscle” 1..5820 /note=“MyHC” /codon start=1 /product=“myosin heavy chain IIx/d” /protein id=“AAD29951.1” /db xref=“GI:4808815” /translation=“MSSDSEMAIFGEAAPFLRKSERERIEAQNKPFDAKTSVFVVDPK ESFVKATVQSREGGKVTAKTEAGATVTVKDDQVFPMNPPKYDKIEDMAMMTHLHEPAV LYNLKERYAAWMIYTYSGLFCVTVNPYKWLPVYNAEVVTAYRGKKRQEAPPHIFSISD NAYQFMLTDRENQSILITGESGAGKTVNTKRVIQYFATIAVTGEKKKEEVTSGKMQGT LEDQIISANPLLEAFGNAKTVRNDNSSRFGKFIRIHFGTTGKLASADIETYLLEKSRV TFQLKAERSYHIFYQIMSNKKPDLIEMLLITTNPYDYAFVSQGEITVPSIDDQEELMA TDSAIEILGFTSDERVSIYKLTGAVMHYGNMKFKQKQREEQAEPDGTEVADKAAYLQN LNSADLLKALCYPRVKVGNEYVTKGQTVQQVYNAVGALAKAVYDKMFLWMVTRINQQL DTKQPRQYFIGVLDIAGFEIFDFNSLEQLCINFTNEKLQQFFNHHMFVLEQEEYKKEG IEWTFIDFGMDLAACIELIEKPMGIFSILEEECMFPKATDTSFKNKLYEQHLGKSNNF QKPKPAKGKPEAHFSLIHYAGTVDYNIAGWLDKNKDPLNETVVGLYQKSAMKTLALLF VGATGAEAEAGGGKKGGKKKGSSFQTVSALFRENLNKLMTNLRSTHPHFVRCIIPNET KTPGAMEHELVLHQLRCNGVLEGIRICRKGFPSRILYADFKQRYKVLNASAIPEGQFI DSKKASEKLLGSIDIDHTQYKFGHTKVFFKAGLLGLLEEMRDEKLAQLITRTQAMCRG FLARVEYQKMVERRESIFCIQYNVRAFMNVKHWPWMKLYFKIKPLLKSAETEKEMANM KEEFEKTKEELAKTEAKRKELEEKMVTLMQEKNDLQLQVQAEADSLADAEERCDQLIK TKIQLEAKIKEVTERAEDEEEINAELTAKKRKLEDECSELKKDIDDLELTLAKVEKEK HATENKVKNLTEEMAGLDETIAKLTKEKKALQEAHQQTLDDLQAEEDKVNTLTKAKIK LEQQVDDLEGSLEQEKKIRMDLERAKRKLEGDLKLAQESAMDIENDKQQLDEKLKKKE FEMSGLQSKIEDEQALGMQLQKKIKELQARIEELEEEIEAERASRAKAEKQRSDLSRE LEEISERLEEAGGATSAQIEMNKKREAEFQKMRRDLEEATLQHEATAATLRKKHADSV AELGEQIDNLQRVKQKLEKEKSEMKMEIDDLASNMETVSKAKGNLEKMCRALEDQLSE IKTKEEEQQRLINDLTAQRARLQTESGEYSRQLDEKDTLVSQLSRGKQAFTQQIEELK RQLEEEIKAKSALAHALQSSRHDCDLLREQYEEEQEAKAELQRAMSKANSEVAQWRTK YETDAIQRTEELEEAKKKLAQRLQDAEEHVEAVNAKCASLEKTKQRLQNEVEDLMIDV ERTNAACAALDKKQRNFDKILAEWKQKCEETHAELEASQKESRSLSTELFKIKNAYEE SLDQLETLKRENKNLQQEISDLTEQIAEGGKRIHELEKIKKQVEQEKSELQAALEEAE ASLEHEEGKILRIQLELNQVKSEVDRKIAEKDEEIDQMKRNHIRIVESMQSTLDAEIR SRNDAIRLKKKMEGDLNEMEIQLNHANRMAAEALRNYRNTQAILKDTQLHLDDALRSQ EDLKEQLAMVERRANLLQAEIEELRATLEQTERSRKIAEQELLDASERVQLLHTQNTS LINTKKKLETDISQIQGEMEDIIQEARNAEEKAKKAITDAAMMAEELKKEQDTSAHLE RMKKNLEQTVKDLQHRLDEAEQLALKGGKKQIQKLEARVRELEGEVESEQKRNVEAVK GLRKHERKVKELTYQTEEDRKNILRLQDLVDKLQAKVKSYKRQAEEAEEQSNVNLSKF RRIQHELEEAEERADIAESQVNKLRVKSREVHTKIISEE”

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BASE COUNT 1890 a 1300 c 1613 g 1122 t ORIGIN 1 atgagttctg actctgagat ggccattttt ggggaggctg 61 gaaagggagc gaattgaagc ccagaacaag ccttttgatg 121 gtggacccta aggagtcctt tgtgaaagca acagtgcaga > 5701 cggaggatcc agcacgagct ggaggaggcc gaggaaaggg 5761 gtcaacaagc tgagggtgaa gagcagggag gttcacacaa 5821 tttatctaac tgctgaaagg tgaccaaaga aatgcacaaa 5881 ccattttgta cttatgactt ttggagataa aaaatttatc //

ctcctttcct ccgaaagtct ccaagacatc agtctttgtg gcagggaagg ggggaaggtg ctgacattgc tgagtcccag aaatcataag tgaagagtaa atgtgaaaat ctttgtcact tgcca

Appendix 3.2. Example of EMBL Flatfile Format ID XX AC XX SV XX DT DT XX DE XX KW XX OS OC OC XX RN RP RX RA RA RT RT RL XX RN RP RX RA RT RT RL XX RN RP RA RT RL RL RL

AF111785 standard; RNA; HUM; 5925 BP. AF111785; AF111785.1 13-MAY-1999 (Rel. 59, Created) 07-SEP-1999 (Rel. 61, Last updated, Version 3) Homo sapiens myosin heavy chain IIx/d mRNA, complete cds. . Homo sapiens (human) Eukaryota; Metazoa; Chordata; Craniata; Vertebrata; Euteleostomi; Mammalia; Eutheria; Primates; Catarrhini; Hominidae; Homo. [1] 1-5925 MEDLINE; 99178997. Weiss A., McDonough D., Wertman B., Acakpo-Satchivi L., Montgomery K., Kucherlapati R., Leinwand L., Krauter K.; “Organization of human and mouse skeletal myosin heavy chain gene clusters is highly conserved”; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 96(6):2958-2963(1999). [2] 1-5925 MEDLINE; 99318869. Weiss A., Schiaffino S., Leinwand L.A.; “Comparative sequence analysis of the complete human sarcomeric myosin heavy chain family: implications for functional diversity”; J. Mol. Biol. 290(1):61-75(1999). [3] 1-5925 Weiss A., Leinwand L.A.; ; Submitted (09-DEC-1998) to the EMBL/GenBank/DDBJ databases. MCDB, University of Colorado at Boulder, Campus Box 0347, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0347, USA

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XX DR SPTREMBL; Q9Y622; Q9Y622. XX FH Key Location/Qualifiers FH FT source 1..5925 FT /chromosome=“17” FT /db xref=“taxon:9606” FT /organism=“Homo sapiens” FT /map=“17p13.1” FT /tissue type=“skeletal muscle” FT CDS 1..5820 FT /codon start=1 FT /db xref=“SPTREMBL:Q9Y622” FT /note=“MyHC”’ FT /product=“myosin heavy chain IIx/d” FT /protein id=“AAD29951.1” FT /translation=“MSSDSEMAIFGEAAPFLRKSERERIEAQNKPFDAKTSVFVVDPKE FT SFVKATVQSREGGKVTAKTEAGATVTVKDDQVFPMNPPKYDKIEDMAMMTHLHEPAVLY FT NLKERYAAWMIYTYSGLFCVTVNPYKWLPVYNAEVVTAYRGKKRQEAPPHIFSISDNAY FT QFMLTDRENQSILITGESGAGKTVNTKRVIQYFATIAVTGEKKKEEVTSGKMQGTLEDQ FT IISANPLLEAFGNAKTVRNDNSSRFGKFIRIHFGTTGKLASADIETYLLEKSRVTFQLK FT AERSYHIFYQIMSNKKPDLIEMLLITTNPYDYAFVSQGEITVPSIDDQEELMATDSAIE FT ILGFTSDERVSIYKLTGAVMHYGNMKFKQKQREEQAEPDGTEVADKAAYLQNLNSADLL FT KALCYPRVKVGNEYVTKGQTVQQVYNAVGALAKAVYDKMFLWMVTRINQQLDTKQPRQY FT FIGVLDIAGFEIFDFNSLEQLCINFTNEKLQQFFNHHMFVLEQEEYKKEGIEWTFIDFG FT MDLAACIELIEKPMGIFSILEEECMFPKATDTSFKNKLYEQHLGKSNNFQKPKPAKGKP FT EAHFSLIHYAGTVDYNIAGWLDKNKDPLNETVVGLYQKSAMKTLALLFVGATGAEAEAG FT GGKKGGKKKGSSFQTVSALFRENLNKLMTNLRSTHPHFVRCIIPNETKTPGAMEHELVL FT HQLRCNGVLEGIRICRKGFPSRILYADFKQRYKVLNASAIPEGQFIDSKKASEKLLGSI FT DIDHTQYKFGHTKVFFKAGLLGLLEEMRDEKLAQLITRTQAMCRGFLARVEYQKMVERR FT ESIFCIQYNVRAFMNVKHWPWMKLYFKIKPLLKSAETEKEMANMKEEFEKTKEELAKTE FT AKRKELEEKMVTLMQEKNDLQLQVQAEADSLADAEERCDQLIKTKIQLEAKIKEVTERA FT EDEEEINAELTAKKRKLEDECSELKKDIDDLELTLAKVEKEKHATENKVKNLTEEMAGL FT DETIAKLTKEKKALQEAHQQTLDDLQAEEDKVNTLTKAKIKLEQQVDDLEGSLEQEKKI FT RMDLERAKRKLEGDLKLAQESAMDIENDKQQLDEKLKKKEFEMSGLQSKIEDEQALGMQ FT LQKKIKELQARIEELEEEIEAERASRAKAEKQRSDLSRELEEISERLEEAGGATSAQIE FT MNKKREAEFQKMRRDLEEATLQHEATAATLRKKHADSVAELGEQIDNLQRVKQKLEKEK FT SEMKMEIDDLASNMETVSKAKGNLEKMCRALEDQLSEIKTKEEEQQRLINDLTAQRARL FT QTESGEYSRQLDEKDTLVSQLSRGKQAFTQQIEELKRQLEEEIKAKSALAHALQSSRHD FT CDLLREQYEEEQEAKAELQRAMSKANSEVAQWRTKYETDAIQRTEELEEAKKKLAQRLQ FT DAEEHVEAVNAKCASLEKTKQRLQNEVEDLMIDVERTNAACAALDKKQRNFDKILAEWK FT QKCEETHAELEASQKESRSLSTELFKIKNAYEESLDQLETLKRENKNLQQEISDLTEQI FT AEGGKRIHELEKIKKQVEQEKSELQAALEEAEASLEHEEGKILRIQLELNQVKSEVDRK FT IAEKDEEIDQMKRNHIRIVESMQSTLDAEIRSRNDAIRLKKKMEGDLNEMEIQLNHANR FT MAAEALRNYRNTQAILKDTQLHLDDALRSQEDLKEQLAMVERRANLLQAEIEELRATLE FT QTERSRKIAEQELLDASERVQLLHTQNTSLINTKKKLETDISQIQGEMEDIIQEARNAE FT EKAKKAITDAAMMAEELKKEQDTSAHLERMKKNLEQTVKDLQHRLDEAEQLALKGGKKQ FT IQKLEARVRELEGEVESEQKRNVEAVKGLRKHERKVKELTYQTEEDRKNILRLQDLVDK FT LQAKVKSYKRQAEEAEEQSNVNLSKFRRIQHELEEAEERADIAESQVNKLRVKSREVHT FT KIISEE” XX SQ Sequence 5925 BP; 1890 A; 1300 C; 1613 G; 1122 T; 0 other; atgagttctg actctgagat ggccattttt ggggaggctg ctcctttcct ccgaaagtct 60 gaaagggagc gaattgaagc ccagaacaag ccttttgatg ccaagacatc agtctttgtg 120 > cggaggatcc agcacgagct ggaggaggcc gaggaaaggg ctgacattgc tgagtcccag 5760 gtcaacaagc tgagggtgaa gagcagggag gttcacacaa aaatcataag tgaagagtaa 5820

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tttatctaac tgctgaaagg tgaccaaaga aatgcacaaa atgtgaaaat ctttgtcact 5880 ccattttgta cttatgactt ttggagataa aaaatttatc tgcca 5925 //

Appendix 3.3. Example of a Record in CON Division LOCUS DEFINITION ACCESSION VERSION KEYWORDS SOURCE ORGANISM

REFERENCE AUTHORS TITLE JOURNAL MEDLINE REFERENCE AUTHORS TITLE JOURNAL FEATURES source

CONTIG

//

U00089 816394 bp DNA circular CON 10-MAY-1999 Mycoplasma pneumoniae M129 complete genome. U00089 U00089.1 GI:6626256 . Mycoplasma pneumoniae. Mycoplasma pneumoniae Bacteria; Firmicutes; Bacillus/Clostridium group; Mollicutes; Mycoplasmataceae; Mycoplasma. 1 (bases 1 to 816394) Himmelreich,R., Hilbert,H., Plagens,H., Pirkl,E., Li,B.C. and Herrmann,R. Complete sequence analysis of the genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae Nucleic Acids Res. 24 (22), 4420-4449 (1996) 97105885 2 (bases 1 to 816394) Himmelreich,R., Hilbert,H. and Li,B.-C. Direct Submission Submitted (15-NOV-1996) Zentrun fuer Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg, University Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany Location/Qualifiers 1..816394 /organism=“Mycoplasma pneumoniae” /strain=“M129” /db xref=“taxon:2104” /note=“ATCC 29342” join(AE000001.1:1..9255,AE000002.1:59..16876,AE000003.1:59..10078, AE000004.1:59..17393,AE000005.1:59..10859,AE000006.1:59..11441, AE000007.1:59..10275,AE000008.1:59..9752,AE000009.1:59..14075, AE000010.1:59..11203,AE000011.1:59..15501,AE000012.1:59..10228, AE000013.1:59..10328,AE000014.1:59..12581,AE000015.1:59..17518, AE000016.1:59..16518,AE000017.1:59..18813,AE000018.1:59..11147, AE000019.1:59..10270,AE000020.1:59..16613,AE000021.1:59..10701, AE000022.1:59..12807,AE000023.1:59..13289,AE000024.1:59..9989, AE000025.1:59..10770,AE000026.1:59..11104,AE000027.1:59..33190, AE000028.1:59..10560,AE000029.1:59..10640,AE000030.1:59..11802, AE000031.1:59..11081,AE000032.1:59..12622,AE000033.1:59..12491, AE000034.1:59..11844,AE000035.1:59..10167,AE000036.1:59..11865, AE000037.1:59..11391,AE000038.1:59..11399,AE000039.1:59..14233, AE000040.1:59..13130,AE000041.1:59..11259,AE000042.1:59..12490, AE000043.1:59..11643,AE000044.1:59..15473,AE000045.1:59..10855, AE000046.1:59..11562,AE000047.1:59..20217,AE000048.1:59..10109, AE000049.1:59..12787,AE000050.1:59..12516,AE000051.1:59..16249, AE000052.1:59..12390,AE000053.1:59..10305,AE000054.1:59..10348, AE000055.1:59..9893,AE000056.1:59..16213,AE000057.1:59..11119, AE000058.1:59..28530,AE000059.1:59..12377,AE000060.1:59..11670, AE000061.1:59..24316,AE000062.1:59..10077,AE000063.1:59..1793)

4 SUBMITTING DNA SEQUENCES TO THE DATABASES Jonathan A. Kans National Center for Biotechnology Information National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland

B. F. Francis Ouellette Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics Children’s and Women’s Health Centre of British Columbia University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia

INTRODUCTION DNA sequence records from the public databases (DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank) are essential components of computational analysis in molecular biology. The sequence records are also reagents for improved curated resources like LocusLink (see Chapter 7) or many of the protein databases. Accurate and informative biological annotation of sequence records is critical in determining the function of a disease gene by sequence similarity search. The names or functions of the encoded protein products, the name of the genetic locus, and the link to the original publication of that sequence make a sequence record of immediate value to the scientist who retrieves it as the result of a BLAST or Entrez search. Effective interpretation of recently finished human genome sequence data is only possible by making use of all submitted data provided along with the actual sequence. These complete, annotated records capture the biology associated with DNA sequences. 65

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Journals no longer print full sequence data, but instead print a database accession number, and require authors to submit sequences to a public database when an article describing a new sequence is submitted for publication. Many scientists release their sequences before the article detailing them is in press. This practice is now the rule for large genome centers, and, although some individual laboratories still wait for acceptance of publication before making their data available, others consider the release of a record to be publication in its own right. The submission process is governed by an international, collaborative agreement. Sequences submitted to any one of the three databases participating in this collaboration will appear in the other two databases within a few days of their release to the public. Sequence records are then distributed worldwide by various user groups and centers, including those that reformat the records for use within their own suites of programs and databases. Thus, by submitting a sequence to only one of the three ‘‘major’’ databases, researchers can quickly disseminate their sequence data and avoid the possibility that redundant records will be archived. As mentioned often in this book, the growth of sequence databases has been exponential. Most sequence records in the early years were submitted by individual scientists studying a gene of interest. A program suitable for this type of submission should allow for the manual annotation of arbitrary biological information. However, the databases recently have had to adapt not only to new classes of data but also to a substantially higher rate of submission. A significant fraction of submissions now represents phylogenetic and population studies, in which relationships between sequences need to be explicitly demonstrated. Completed genomes are also becoming available at a growing rate. This chapter is devoted to the submission of DNA and protein sequences and their annotations into the public databases. Presented here are two different approaches for submitting sequences to the databases, one Web-based (using BankIt) and the other using Sequin, a multi-platform program that can use a direct network connection. Sequin is also an ASN.1 editing tool that takes full advantage of the NCBI data model (see Chapter 2) and has become a platform for many sequence analysis tools that NCBI has developed over the years. (A separate bulk-submission protocol used for EST records, which are submitted to the databases at the rate of thousands per day, is discussed briefly at the end of this chapter. Fortunately, EST records are fairly simple and uniform in content, making them amenable to automatic processing.)

WHY, WHERE, AND WHAT TO SUBMIT? One should submit to whichever of the three public databases is most convenient. This may be the database that is closest geographically, it may be the repository one has always used in the past, or it may simply be the place one’s submission is likely to receive the best attention. All three databases have knowledgeable staff able to help submitters throughout the process. Under normal circumstances, an accession number will be returned within one workday, and a finished record should be available within 5–10 working days, depending on the information provided by the submitter. Submitting data to the database is not the end of one’s scientific obligation. Updating the record as more information becomes available will ensure that the information within the record will survive time and scientific rigor.

W H Y, W H E R E , A N D W H AT T O S U B M I T ?

Presently, it is assumed that all submissions of sequences are done electronically: via the World Wide Web, by electronic mail, or (at the very least) on a computer disk sent via regular postal mail. The URLs and E-mail addresses for electronic submissions are shown in the list at the end of the chapter. All three databases want the same end result: a richly annotated, biologically and computationally sound record, one that allows other scientists to be able to reap the benefits of the work already performed by the submitting biologist and that affords links to the protein, bibliographic, and genomic databases (see Chapter 7). There is a rich set of biological features and other annotations available, but the important components are the ones that lend themselves to analysis. These include the nucleotide and protein sequences, the CDS (coding sequence, also known as coding region), gene, and mRNA features (i.e., features representing the central dogma of molecular biology), the organism from which the sequences were determined, and the bibliographic citation that links them to the information sphere and will have all the experimental details that give this sequence its raison d’eˆtre.

DNA/RNA The submission process is quite simple, but care must be taken to provide information that is accurate (free of errors and vector or mitochondrial contamination) and as biologically sound as possible, to ensure maximal usability by the scientific community. Here are a few matters to consider before starting a submission, regardless of its form. Nature of the Sequence. Is it of genomic or mRNA origin? Users of the databases like to know the nature of the physical DNA that is the origin of the molecule being sequenced. For example, although cDNA sequencing is performed on DNA (and not RNA), the type of the molecule present in the cell is mRNA. The same is true for the genomic sequencing of rRNA genes, in which the sequenced molecule is almost always genomic DNA. Copying the rRNA into DNA, like direct sequencing of rRNA, although possible, is rarely done. Bear in mind also that, because the sequence being submitted should be of a unique molecular type, it must not represent (for example) a mixture of genomic and mRNA molecule types that cannot actually be isolated from a living cell. Is the Sequence Synthetic, But Not Artificial? There is a special division in the nucleotide databases for synthetic molecules, sequences put together experimentally that do not occur naturally in the environment (e.g., protein expression vector sequences). The DNA sequence databases do not accept computer-generated sequences, such as consensus sequences, and all sequences in the databases are experimentally derived from the actual sequencing of the molecule in question. They can, however, be the compilation of a shotgun sequencing exercise. How Accurate is the Sequence? This question is poorly documented in the database literature, but the assumption that the submitted sequence is as accurate as possible usually means at least two-pass coverage (in opposite orientations) on the whole submitted sequence. Equally important is the verification of the final submitted sequence. It should be free of vector contamination (this can be verified with a BLASTN search against the VecScreen database; see Chapter 8 and later in this

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chapter) and possibly checked with known restriction maps, to eliminate the possibility of sequence rearrangement and to confirm correct sequence assembly.

Organism All DNA sequence records must show the organism from which the sequence was derived. Many inferences are made from the phylogenetic position of the records present in the databases. If these are wrongly placed, an incorrect genetic code may be used for translation, with the possible consequence of an incorrectly translated or prematurely truncated protein product sequence. Just knowing the genus and species is usually enough to permit the database staff to identify the organism and its lineage. NCBI offers an important taxonomy service, and the staff taxonomists maintain the taxonomy that is used by all the nucleotide databases and by SWISS-PROT, a curated protein database.

Citation As good as the annotations can be, they will never surpass a published article in fully representing the state of biological knowledge with respect to the sequence in any given record. It is therefore imperative to ensure the proper link between the research publication and the primary data it will cite. For this reason, having a citation in the submission being prepared is of great importance, even if it consists of just a temporary list of authors and a working title. Updating these citations at publication time is also important to the value of the record. (This is done routinely by the database staff and will happen more promptly if the submitter notifies the staff on publication of the article.)

Coding Sequence(s) A submission of nucleotide also means the inclusion of the protein sequences it encodes. This is important for two reasons: • Protein databases (e.g., SWISS-PROT and PIR) are almost entirely populated by protein sequences present in DNA sequence database records. • The inclusion of the protein sequence serves as an important, if not essential, validation step in the submission process. Proteins include the enzyme molecules that carry out many of the biological reactions we study, and their sequences are an intrinsic part of the submission process. Their importance, which is discussed in Chapter 2, is also reflected in the submission process, and this information must be captured for representation in the various databases. Also important are the protein product and gene names, if these are known. There are a variety of resources (many present in the lists that conclude these chapters) that offer the correct gene nomenclature for many organisms (cf. Genetic nomenclature guide, Trends in Genetics, 1998). The coding sequence features, or CDS, are the links between the DNA or RNA and the protein sequences, and their correct positioning is central in the validation, as is the correct genetic code. The nucleotide databases now use 17 different genetic

P R O T E I N - O N LY S U B M I S S I O N S

codes that are maintained by the taxonomy and molecular biology staff at NCBI. Because protein sequences are so important, comprising one of the main pieces of molecular biology information on which biologists can compute, they receive much deserved attention from the staff at the various databases. It is usually simple to find the correct open-reading frame in an mRNA (see Chapter 10), and various tools are available for this (e.g., NCBI’s ORF Finder). Getting the correct CDS intervals in a genomic sequence from a higher eukaryote is a little trickier: the different exoncoding sequences must be joined, and this involves a variety of approaches, also described in Chapter 10. (The Suggest Intervals function in Sequin will calculate CDS intervals if given the sequence of the protein and the proper genetic code.) A submitted record will be validated by the database staff but even more immediately by the submission tool used as well. Validation checks that the start and stop codons are included in the CDS intervals, that these intervals are using exon/intron-consensus boundaries, and that the provided amino acid sequence can be translated from the designated CDS intervals using the appropriate genetic code.

Other Features There are a variety of other features available for the feature sections of a submitted sequence record. The complete set of these is represented in the feature table documentation. Although many features are available, there is much inconsistent usage in the databases, mainly due to a lack of consistent guidelines and poor agreement among biologists as to what they really mean. Getting the organism, bibliography, gene, CDS, and mRNA correct usually suffices and makes for a record that can be validated, is informative, and allows a biologist to grasp in a few lines of text an overview of the biology of the sequence. Nonetheless, the full renditions of the feature table documentation are available for use as appropriate but with care taken as to the intent of the annotations.

POPULATION, PHYLOGENETIC, AND MUTATION STUDIES The nucleotide databases are now accepting population, phylogenetic, and mutational studies as submitted sequence sets, and, although this information is not adequately represented in the flatfile records, it is appearing in the various databases. This allows the submission of a group of related sequences together, with entry of shared information required only once. Sequin also allows the user to include the alignment generated with a favorite alignment tool and to submit this information with the DNA sequence. New ways to display this information (such as Entrez) should soon make this kind of data more visible to the general scientific community.

PROTEIN-ONLY SUBMISSIONS In most cases, protein sequences come with a DNA sequence. There are some exceptions—people do sequence proteins directly—and such sequences must be submitted without a corresponding DNA sequence. SWISS-PROT presently is the best venue for these submissions.

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HOW TO SUBMIT ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB The World Wide Web is now the most common interface used to submit sequences to the three databases. The Web-based submission systems include Sakura (‘‘cherry blossoms’’) at DDBJ, WebIn at EBI, and BankIt at the NCBI. The Web is the preferred submission path for simple submissions or for those that do not require complicated annotations or too much repetition (i.e., 30 similar sequences, as typically found in a population study, would best be done with Sequin, see below). The Web form is ideal for a research group that makes few sequence submissions and needs something simple, entailing a short learning curve. The Web forms are more than adequate for the majority of the submissions: some 75–80% of individual submissions to NCBI are done via the Web. The alternative addresses (or URLs) for submitting to the three databases are presented in the list at the end of the chapter. On entering a BankIt submission, the user is asked about the length of the nucleotide sequence to be submitted. The next BankIt form is straightforward: it asks about the contact person (the individual to whom the database staff may address any questions), the citations (who gets the scientific credit), the organism (the top 100 organisms are on the form; all others must be typed in), the location (nuclear vs. organelle), some map information, and the nucleotide sequence itself. At the end of the form, there is a BankIt button, which calls up the next form. At this point, some validation is made, and, if any necessary fields were not filled in, the form is presented again. If all is well, the next form asks how many features are to be added and prompts the user to indicate their types. If no features were added, BankIt will issue a warning and ask for confirmation that not even one CDS is to be added to the submission. The user can say no (zero new CDSs) or take the opportunity to add one or more CDS. At this point, structural RNA information or any other legal DDBJ/ EMBL/GenBank features can be added as well. To begin to save a record, press the BankIt button again. The view that now appears must be approved before the submission is completed; that is, more changes may be made, or other features may be added. To finish, press BankIt one more time. The final screen will then appear; after the user toggles the Update/Finished set of buttons and hits BankIt one last time, the submission will go to NCBI for processing. A copy of the just-finished submission should arrive promptly via E-mail; if not, one should contact the database to confirm receipt of the submission and to make any correction that may be necessary.

HOW TO SUBMIT WITH SEQUIN Sequin is designed for preparing new sequence records and updating existing records for submission to DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank. It is a tool that works on most computer platforms and is suitable for a wide range of sequence lengths and complexities, including traditional (gene-sized) nucleotide sequences, segmented entries (e.g., genomic sequences of a spliced gene for which not all intronic sequences have been determined), long (genome-sized) sequences with many annotated features, and sets of related sequences (i.e., population, phylogenetic, or mutation studies of a particular gene, region, or viral genome). Many of these submissions could be performed via the Web, but Sequin is more practical for more complex cases. Certain

HOW TO SUBMIT WITH SEQUIN

types of submission (e.g., segmented sets) cannot be made via the Web unless explicit instructions to the database staff are inserted. Sequin also accepts sequences of proteins encoded by the submitted nucleotide sequences and allows annotation of features on these proteins (e.g., signal peptides, transmembrane regions, or cysteine disulfide bonds). For sets of related or similar sequences (e.g., population or phylogenetic studies), Sequin accepts information from the submitter on how the multiple sequences are aligned to each other. Finally, Sequin can be used to edit and resubmit a record that already exists in GenBank, either by extending (or replacing) the sequence or by annotating additional features or alignments.

Submission Made Easy Sequin has a number of attributes that greatly simplify the process of building and annotating a record. The most profound aspect is automatic calculation of the intervals on a CDS feature given only the nucleotide sequence, the sequence of the protein product, and the genetic code (which is itself automatically obtained from the organism name). This ‘‘Suggest Intervals’’ process takes consensus splice sites into account in its calculations. Traditionally, these intervals were entered manually, a time-consuming and error-prone process, especially on a genomic sequence with many exons, in cases of alternative splicing, or on segmented sequences. Another important attribute is the ability to enter relevant annotation in a simple format in the definition line of the sequence data file. Sequin recognizes and extracts this information when reading the sequences and then puts it in the proper places in the record. For nucleotide sequences, it is possible to enter the organism’s scientific name, the strain or clone name, and several other source modifiers. For example >eIF4E [organism=Drosophila melanogaster] [strain=Oregon R] CGGTTGCTTGGGTTTTATAACATCAGTCAGTGACAGGCATTTCCAGAGTTGCCCTGTTCAACAATCGATA GCTGCCTTTGGCCACCAAAATCCCAAACTTAATTAAAGAATTAAATAATTCGAATAATAATTAAGCCCAG ...

This is especially important for population and phylogenetic studies, where the source modifiers are necessary to distinguish one component from another. For protein sequences, the gene and protein names can be entered. For example >4E-I [gene=eIF4E] [protein=eukaryotic initiation factor 4E-I] MQSDFHRMKNFANPKSMFKTSAPSTEQGRPEPPTSAAAPAEAKDVKPKEDPQETGEPAGNTATTTAPAGD DAVRTEHLYKHPLMNVWTLWYLENDRSKSWEDMQNEITSFDTVEDFWSLYNHIKPPSEIKLGSDYSLFKK ...

If this information is not present in the sequence definition line, Sequin will prompt the user for it before proceeding. Annotations on the definition line can be very convenient, since the information stays with the sequence and cannot be forgotten or mixed-up later. In addition to building the proper CDS feature, Sequin will automatically make gene and protein features with this information. Because the majority of submissions contain a single nucleotide sequence and one or more coding region features (and their associated protein sequences), the functionality just outlined can frequently result in a finished record, ready to submit

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without any further annotation. With gene and protein names properly recorded, the record becomes informative to other scientists who may retrieve it as a BLAST similarity result or from an Entrez search.

Starting a New Submission Sequin begins with a window that allows the user to start a new submission or load a file containing a saved record. After the initial submission has been built, the record can be saved to a file and edited later, before finally being sent to the database. If Sequin has been configured to be network aware, this window also allows the downloading of existing database records that are to be updated. A new submission is made by filling out several forms. The forms use folder tabs to subdivide a window into several pages, allowing all the requested data to be entered without the need for a huge computer screen. These entry forms have buttons for Prev(ious) Page and Next Page. When the user arrives at the last page on a form, the Next Page button changes to Next Form. The Submitting Authors form requests a tentative title, information on the contact person, the authors of the sequence, and their institutional affiliations. This form is common to all submissions, and the contact, authors, and affiliation page data can be saved by means of the Export menu item. The resulting file can be read in when starting other submissions by choosing the Import menu item. However, because even population, phylogenetic, or mutation studies are submitted in one step as one record, there is less need to save the submitter information. The Sequence Format form asks for the type of submission (single sequence, segmented sequence, or population, phylogenetic, or mutation study). For the last three types of submission, which involve comparative studies on related sequences, the format in which the data will be entered also can be indicated. The default is FASTA format (or raw sequence), but various contiguous and interleaved formats (e.g., PHYLIP, NEXUS, PAUP, and FASTA+ GAP) are also supported. These latter formats contain alignment information, and this is stored in the sequence record. The Organism and Sequences form asks for the biological data. On the Organism page, as the user starts to type the scientific name, the list of frequently used organisms scrolls automatically. (Sequin holds information on the top 800 organisms present in GenBank.) Thus, after typing a few letters, the user can fill in the rest of the organism name by clicking on the appropriate item in the list. Sequin now knows the scientific name, common name, GenBank division, taxonomic lineage, and, most importantly, the genetic code to use. (For mitochondrial genes, there is a control to indicate that the alternative genetic code should be used.) For organisms not on the list, it may be necessary to set the genetic code control manually. Sequin uses the standard code as the default. The remainder of the Organism and Sequences form differs depending on the type of submission.

Entering a Single Nucleotide Sequence and its Protein Products For a single sequence or a segmented sequence, the rest of the Organism and Sequences form contains Nucleotide and Protein folder tabs. The Nucleotide page has controls for setting the molecule type (e.g., genomic DNA or mRNA) and topology (usually linear, occasionally circular) and for indicating whether the sequence is


incomplete at the 5⬘ or 3⬘ ends. Similarly, the Protein page has controls for creating an initial mRNA feature and for indicating whether the sequence is incomplete at the amino or carboxyl ends. For each protein sequence, Suggest Intervals is run against the nucleotide sequence (using the entered genetic code, which is usually deduced from the chosen organism), and a CDS feature is made with the resulting intervals. A Gene feature is generated, with a single interval spanning the CDS intervals. A protein product sequence is made, with a Protein feature to give it a name. The organism and publication are placed so as to apply to all nucleotide and protein sequences within the record. Appropriate molecule-type information is also placed on the sequences. In most cases, it is much easier to enter the protein sequence and let Sequin construct the record automatically than to manually add a CDS feature (and associated gene and protein features) later.

Entering an Aligned Set of Sequences A growing class of submissions involves sets of related sequences: population, phylogenetic, or mutation studies. A large number of HIV sequences come in as population studies. A common phylogenetic study involves ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (RUBISCO), a major enzyme of photosynthesis and perhaps the most prevalent protein (by weight) on earth. Submitting such a set of sequences is not much more complex than submitting a single sequence. The same submission information form is used to enter author and contact information. In the Sequence Format form, the user chooses the desired type of submission. Population studies are generally from different individuals in the same (crossbreeding) species. Phylogenetic studies are from different species. In the former case, it is best to embed in the definition lines strain, clone, isolate, or other sourceidentifying information. In the latter case, the organism’s scientific name should be embedded. Multiple sequence studies can be submitted in FASTA format, in which case Sequin should later be called on to calculate an alignment. Better yet, alignment information can be indicated by encoding the data in one of several popular alignment formats. The Organism and Sequences form is slightly different for sets of sequences. The Organism page for phylogenetic studies allows the setting of a default genetic code only for organisms not in Sequin’s local list of popular species. The Nucleotide page has the same controls as for a single sequence submission. Instead of a Protein page, there is now an Annotation page. Many submissions are of rRNA sequence or no more than a complete CDS. (This means that the feature intervals span the full range of each sequence.) The Annotation page allows these to be created and named. A definition line (title) can be specified, and Sequin can prefix the individual organism name to the title. More complex situations, in which sequences have more than a single interval feature across the entire span, can be annotated by feature propagation after the initial record has been built and one of the sequences has been annotated. As a final step, Sequin displays an editor that allows all organism and source modifiers on each sequence to be edited (or entered if the definition lines were not annotated). On confirmation of the modifiers, Sequin finishes assembling the record into the proper structure.

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Viewing the Sequence Record Sequin provides a number of different views of a sequence record. The traditional flatfile can be presented in FASTA, GenBank (Fig. 4.1), or EMBL format. (These can be exported to files on the user’s computer, which can then be entered into other sequence analysis packages.) A graphical view (Fig. 4.2) shows feature intervals on a sequence. This is particularly useful for viewing alternatively spliced coding regions. (The style of the Graphical view can be customized, and these views can also be copied to the personal computer’s clipboard for pasting into a word processor or drawing program that will be used in preparing a manuscript for publication.) There is a more detailed view that shows the features on the actual sequence. For records containing alignments (e.g., alignments between related sequences entered by a user, or the results of a BLAST search), one can request either a graphical

Figure 4.1. Viewing a sequence record with Sequin. The sequence record viewer uses GenBank format, by default. In this example, a CDS feature has been clicked, as indicated by the bar next to its paragraph. Double-clicking on a paragraph will launch an editor for the feature, descriptor, or sequence that was selected. The viewer can be duplicated, and multiple viewers can show the same record in different formats.


Figure 4.2. Sequin’s graphical format can show segmented sequence construction and feature intervals. These can be compared with drawings in laboratory notebooks to see, at a glance, whether the features are annotated at the proper locations. Different styles can be used, and new styles can be created, to customize the appearance of the graphical view. The picture can be copied to a personal computer’s clipboard for pasting into a word processor or drawing program.

overview showing insertions, deletions, and mismatches or a detailed view showing the alignment of sequence letters. The above-mentioned viewers are interactive. Clicking on a feature, a sequence, or the graphical representation of an alignment between sequences will highlight that object. Double-clicking will launch the appropriate editor. Multiple viewers can be used on the same record, permitting different formats to be seen simultaneously. For example, it is quite convenient to have the graphical view and the GenBank (or EMBL) flatfile view present at the same time, especially on larger records containing more than one CDS. The graphical view can be compared to a scientist’s lab notebook drawings, providing a quick reality check on the overall accuracy of the feature annotation.

Validation To ensure the quality of data being submitted, Sequin has a built-in validator that searches for missing organism information, incorrect coding region lengths (compared to the submitted protein sequence), internal stop codons in coding regions,

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mismatched amino acids, and nonconsensus splice sites. Double-clicking on an item in the error report launches an editor on the ‘‘offending’’ feature. The validator also checks for inconsistent use of ‘‘partial’’ indications, especially among coding regions, the protein product, and the protein feature on the product. For example, if the coding region is marked as incomplete at the 5⬘ end, the protein product and protein feature should be marked as incomplete at the amino end. (Unless told otherwise, the CDS editor will automatically synchronize these separate partial indicators, facilitating the correction of this kind of inconsistency.)

Advanced Annotation and Editing Functions The sequence editor built into Sequin automatically adjusts feature intervals as the sequence is edited. This is particularly important if one is extending an existing record by adding new 5⬘ sequence. Prior to Sequin, this process entailed manually correcting the intervals on all biological features on the sequence or, more likely, redoing the entire submission from scratch. The sequence editor is used much like a text editor, with new sequence being pasted in or typed in at the position of a cursor. For population or phylogenetic studies, Sequin allows annotation of one sequence, whereupon features from that sequence can be propagated to all other sequences through the supplied alignment. (In the case of a CDS feature, the feature intervals can be calculated automatically by reading in the sequence of its protein product rather than having to enter them by typing.) Feature propagation is accessed from the alignment editor. The result is the same as would have been achieved if features had been manually annotated on each sequence, but with feature propagation the entire process can be completed in minutes rather than hours. The concepts behind feature propagation and the sequence editor combine to provide a simple and automatic method for updating an existing sequence. The Update Sequence functions allow the user to enter an overlapping sequence or a replacement sequence. Sequin makes an alignment, merges the sequences if necessary, propagates features onto the new sequence in their new positions, and uses these to replace the old sequence and features. Genome centers frequently store feature coordinates in databases. Sequin can now annotate features by reading a simple tab-delimited file that specifies the location and type of each feature. The first line starts with >Features, a space, and the sequence identifier of the sequence. The table is composed of five columns: start, stop, feature key, qualifier key, and qualifier value. The columns are separated by tab characters. The first row for any given feature has start, stop, and feature key. Additional feature intervals just have start and stop. The qualifiers follow on lines starting with three tabs. An example of this format follows below. >Features lcl|eIF4E 80 2881 gene 1402 1550 1986 2317 2466

1458 1920 2085 2404 2629

gene

eIF4E

product

eukaryotic initiation factor 4E-I

CDS

C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F T H E D ATA M O D E L

Sending the Submission A finished submission can be saved to disk and E-mailed to one of the databases. It is also a good practice to save frequently throughout the Sequin session, to make sure nothing is inadvertently lost. The list at the end of this chapter provides E-mail addresses and contact information for the three databases.

UPDATES The database staffs at all three databases welcome all suggestions on making the update process as efficient and painless as possible. People who notice that records are published but not yet released are strongly encouraged to notify the databases as well. If errors are detected, these should also be forwarded to the updates addresses; the owner of the record is notified accordingly (by the database staff), and a correction usually results. This chain of events is to be distinguished from third-party annotations, which are presently not accepted by the databases. The record belongs to the submitter(s); the database staff offers some curatorial, formatting guideline suggestions, but substantive changes come only from a listed submitter. Many scientists simply E-mail a newly extended sequence or feature update to the databases for updating.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE DATA MODEL Sequin is, in reality, an ASN.1 editor. The NCBI data model, written in the ASN.1 data description language, is designed to keep associated information together in descriptors or features (see Chapter 2). Features are typically biological entities (e.g., genes, coding regions, RNAs, proteins) that always have a location (of one or more intervals) on a sequence. Descriptors were introduced to carry information that can apply to multiple sequences, eliminating the need to enter multiple copies of the same information. For the simplest case, that of a single nucleotide sequence with one or more protein products, Sequin generally allows the user to work without needing to be aware of the data model’s structural hierarchy. Navigation is necessary, as is at least a cursory understanding of the data model, if extensive annotation on protein product sequences is contemplated or for manual annotation of population and phylogenetic sets. Setting the Target control to a given sequence changes the viewer to show a graphical view or text report on that sequence. Any features or descriptors created with the Annotation submenus will be packaged on the currently targeted sequence. Although Sequin does provide full navigation among all sequences within a structured record, building the original structure from the raw sequence data is a job best left to Sequin’s ‘‘create new submission’’ functions described above. Sequin asks up front for information (e.g., organism and source modifiers, gene and protein names) and knows how to correctly package everything into the appropriate place. This was, in fact, one of the main design goals of Sequin. Manual annotation requires a more detailed understanding of the data model and expertise with the more esoteric functions of Sequin.

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Using Sequin as a Workbench Sequin also provides a number of sequence analysis functions. For example, one function will reverse-complement the sequence and the intervals of its features. New functions can easily be added. These functions appear in a window called the NCBI Desktop (Fig. 4.3), which directly displays the internal structure of the records currently loaded in memory. This window can be understood as a Venn diagram, with descriptors on a set (such as a population study) applying to all sequences in that set. The Desktop allows drag-and-drop of items within a record. For example, the

Figure 4.3. The NCBI Desktop displays a graphical overview of how the record is structured in memory, based on the NCBI data model (see Chapter 2). This view is most useful to a software developer or database sequence annotator. In this example, the submission contains a single Nuc-prot set, which in turn contains a nucleotide and two proteins. Each sequence has features associated with it. BioSource and publication descriptors on the Nucprot set apply the same organism (Drosophila melanogaster) and the same publication, respectively, to all sequences.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

user can read the results of a BLAST analysis and then drag-and-drop this information onto a sequence record, thus adding the alignment data to the record, or a newly calculated feature can be dragged into the record. (A separate Seq-loc on the Desktop can be dragged onto a feature, in which case it changes the feature location.) The modifications are immediately displayed on any active viewers. Note, however, that not all annotations are visible in all viewers. The flatfile view does have its limitations; for example, it does not display alignments and does not even indicate that alignments are present. Understanding the Desktop is not necessary for the casual user submitting a simple sequence; however, for the advanced user, it can immediately take the mystery out of the data.

EST/STS/GSS/HTG/SNP AND GENOME CENTERS Genome centers have now established a number of relationships with DNA sequence databases and have streamlined the submission process for a great number of record types. Not all genome centers deal with all sequence types, but all databases do. The databases have educated their more sophisticated users on this, and, conversely, some of the genomes centers have also encouraged certain database managers to learn their own data model as well (e.g., the use of AceDB to submit sequences at Stanford, Washington University at St. Louis, and the Sanger Centre or the use of XML at Celera).

CONCLUDING REMARKS The act of depositing records into a database and seeing these records made public has always been an exercise of pride on the part of submitters, a segment of the scientific activity from their laboratory that they present to the scientific community. It is also a mandatory step that has been imposed by publishers as part of the publication process. In this process, submitters always hope to provide information in the most complete and useful fashion, allowing maximum use of their data by the scientific community. Very few users are aware of the complete array of intricacies present in the databases, but they do know the biology they want these entries to represent. It is incumbent on the databases to provide tools that will facilitate this process. The database staff also provides expertise through their indexing staff (some databases also call them curators or annotators), who have extensive training in biology and are very familiar with the databases; they ensure that nothing is lost in the submission process. The submission exercise itself has not always been easy and was not even encouraged at the beginning of the sequencing era, simply because databases did not know how to handle this information. Now, however, the databases strongly encourage the submission of sequence data and of all appropriate updates. Many tools are available to facilitate this task, and together the databases support Sequin as the tool to use for new submissions, in addition to their respective Web submissions tools. Submitting data to the databases has now become a manageable (and sometimes enjoyable) task, with scientists no longer having good excuses for neglecting it.

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CONTACT POINTS FOR SUBMISSION OF SEQUENCE DATA TO DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank DDBJ (Center for Information Biology, NIG) Address DDBJ, 1111 Yata, Mishima, Shiznoka 411, Japan Fax 81-559-81-6849 E-mail Submissions [email protected] Updates [email protected] Information [email protected] World Wide Web Home page http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/ Submissions http://sakura.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/ EMBL (European Bioinformatics Institutes, EMBL Outstation) Address EMBL Outstation, EBI, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton Cambridge, CB10 1SD, United Kingdom Voice 01.22.349.44.44 Fax 01.22.349.44.68 E-mail Submissions [email protected] Updates [email protected] Information [email protected] World Wide Web Home page http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ Submissions http://www.ebi.ac.uk/subs/allsubs.html WebIn http://www.ebi.ac.uk/submission/webin.html GenBank (National Center for Biotechnology Information, NIH) Address GenBank, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Building 38A, Room 8N805, Bethesda MD 20894 Telephone 301-496-2475 Fax 301-480-9241 E-mail Submissions [email protected] EST/GSS/STS [email protected] Updates [email protected] Information [email protected] World Wide Web Home page http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ Submissions http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Web/GenBank/submit.html BankIt http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BankIt/

INTERNET RESOURCES FOR TOPICS PRESENTED IN CHAPTER 4 dbEST dbSTS dbGSS

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/dbEST/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/dbSTS/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/dbGSS/

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REFERENCES

DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank Feature Table Documentation EMBL Release Notes GenBank Release Notes Genetic codes used in DNA sequence databases HTGS ORF Finder Sequin Taxonomy browser

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/collab/FT/ ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/embl/release/ relnotes.doc ftp://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/gbrel.txt http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbinpost/ Taxonomy/wprintgc?mode c http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/HTGS/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gorf/gorf.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Sequin/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/tax.html

REFERENCES Boguski, M. S., Lowe, T. M., Tolstoshev, C. M. (1993). dbEST—database for ‘‘expressed sequence tags. Nat. Genet. 4, 332–333. Ouellette, B. F. F., and Boguski, M. S. 1997. Database divisions and homology search files: a guide for the perplexed. Genome Res. 7, 952–955.

5 STRUCTURE DATABASES Christopher W. V. Hogue Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute Mount Sinai Hospital Toronto, Ontario, Canada

INTRODUCTION TO STRUCTURES This chapter introduces biomolecular structures from a bioinformatics perspective, with special emphasis on the sequences that are contained in three-dimensional structures. The major goal of this chapter is to inform the reader about the contents of structure database records and how they are treated, and sometimes mistreated, by popular software programs. This chapter does not cover the computational processes used by structural scientists to obtain three-dimensional structures, nor does it discuss the finer points of comparative protein architecture. Several excellent monographs regarding protein architecture and protein structure determination methods are already widely available and often found in campus bookstores (e.g., Branden and Tooze, 1999). The imagery of protein and nucleic acid structures has become a common feature of biochemistry textbooks and research articles. This imagery can be beautiful and intriguing enough to blind us to the experimental details an image represents—the underlying biophysical methods and the effort of hard-working X-ray crystallographers and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopists. The data stored in structure database records represents a practical summary of the experimental data. It is, however, not the data gathered directly by instruments, nor is it a simple mathematical transformation of that data. Each structure database record carries assumptions and biases that change as the state of the art in structure determination advances. Nevertheless, each biomolecular structure is a hard-won piece of crucial information and provides potentially critical information regarding the function of any given protein sequence. 83

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Since the first edition of this book was released, the software for viewing and manipulating three-dimensional structures has improved dramatically. Another major change has come in the form of an organizational transition, with the Protein Data Bank (PDB) moving from the Brookhaven National Laboratories to the Research Collaboratory for Structural Biology. The result has been a complete change in the organization of the PDB web site. The impact of these changes for biologists will be discussed herein.

The Notion of Three-Dimensional Molecular Structure Data Let us begin with a mental exercise in recording the three-dimensional data of a biopolymer. Consider how we might record, on paper, all the details and dimensions of a three-dimensional ball-and-stick model of a protein like myoglobin. One way to begin is with the sequence, which can be obtained by tracing out the backbone of the three-dimensional model. Beginning from the NH2-terminus, we identify each amino acid side chain by comparing the atomic structure of each residue with the chemical structure of the 20 common amino acids, possibly guided by an illustration of amino acid structures from a textbook. Once the sequence has been written down, we proceed with making a twodimensional sketch of the biopolymer with all its atoms, element symbols, and bonds, possibly taking up several pieces of paper. The same must be done for the heme ligand, which is an important functional part of the myoglobin molecule. After drawing its chemical structure on paper, we might record the three-dimensional data by measuring the distance of each atom in the model starting from some origin point, along some orthogonal axis system. This would provide the x-, y-, and z-axis distances to each atomic ‘‘ball’’ in the ball-and-stick structure. The next step is to come up with a bookkeeping scheme to keep all the (x, y, z) coordinate information connected to the identity of each atom. The easiest approach may be to write the (x, y, z) value as a coordinate triple on the same pieces of paper used for the two-dimensional sketch of the biopolymer, right next to each atom. This associates the (x, y, z) value with the atom it is attached to. This mental exercise helps to conceptualize what a three-dimensional structure database record ought to contain. There are two things that have been recorded here: the chemical structure and the locations of the individual atoms in space. This is an adequate ‘‘human-readable’’ record of the structure, but one probably would not expect a computer to digest it easily. The computer needs clear encoding of the associations of atoms, bonds, coordinates, residues, and molecules, so that one may construct software that can read the data in an unambiguous manner. Here is where the real exercise in structural bioinformatics begins.

Coordinates, Sequences, and Chemical Graphs The most obvious data in a typical three-dimensional structure record, regardless of the file format in use, is the coordinate data, the locations in space of the atoms of a molecule. These data are represented by (x, y, z) triples, distances along each axis to some arbitrary origin in space. The coordinate data for each atom is attached to a list of labeling information in the structure record: which element, residue, and molecule each point in space belongs to. For the standard biopolymers (DNA, RNA, and proteins), this labeling information can be derived starting with the raw sequence.

INTRODUCTION TO STRUCTURES

Implicit in each sequence is considerable chemical data. We can infer the complete chemical connectivity of the biopolymer molecule directly from a sequence, including all its atoms and bonds, and we could make a sketch, just like the one described earlier, from sequence information alone. We refer to this ‘‘sketch’’ of the molecule as the chemical graph component of a three-dimensional structure. Every time a sequence is presented in this book or elsewhere, remember that it can encode a fairly complete description of the chemistry of that molecule. When we sketch all the underlying atoms and bonds representing a sequence, we may defer to a textbook showing the chemical structures of each residue, lest we forget a methyl group or two. Likewise, computers could build up a sketch like a representation of the chemical graph of a structure in memory using a residue dictionary, which contains a table of the atom types and bond information for each of the common amino acid and nucleic acid building blocks. What sequence is unable to encode is information about posttranslational modifications. For example, in the structure databases, a phosphorylated tyrosine residue is indicated as ‘‘X’’ in the one letter code—essentially an unknown! Any residue that has had an alteration to its standard chemical graph will, unfortunately, be indicated as X in the one-letter encoding of sequence.

Atoms, Bonds, and Completeness Molecular graphics visualization software performs an elaborate ‘‘connect-the-dots’’ process to make the wonderful pictures of protein structure we see in textbooks of biomolecular structure, like the structure for insulin (3INS; Isaccs and Agarwa, 1978) shown in Figure 5.1. The connections used are, of course, the chemical bonds between all the atoms. In current use, three-dimensional molecular structure database records employ two different ‘‘minimalist’’ approaches regarding the storage of bond data. The original approach to recording atoms and bonds is something we shall call the chemistry rules approach. The rules are the observable physical rules of chemistry, such as, ‘‘the average length of a stable C — C bond is about 1.5 angstroms.’’ Applying these rules to derive the bonds means that any two coordinate locations in ˚ apart and are tagged as carbon atoms always form a single space that are 1.5 A bond. With the chemistry rules approach, we can simply disregard the bonds. A perfect and complete structure can be recorded without any bond information, provided it does not break any of the rules of chemistry in atomic locations. Obviously, this is not always the case, and specific examples of this will be presented later in this chapter. The chemistry rules approach ended up being the basis for the original threedimensional biomolecular structure file format, the PDB format from the Protein Data Bank at Brookhaven (Bernstein et al., 1977). These records, in general, lack complete bond information for biopolymers. The working assumption is that no residue dictionary is required for interpretation of data encoded by this approach, just a table of bond lengths and bond types for every conceivable pair of bonded atoms is required. Every software package that reads in PDB data files must reconstruct the bonds based on these rules. However, the rules we are describing have never been explicitly codified for programmers. This means that interpreting the bonding in PDB files is left for the programmer to decide, and, as a result, software can be inconsistent in

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Figure 5.1. The insulin structure 3INS illustrated using Cn3D with OpenGL. Four chains are depicted in the crystallographic unit. This structure illustrates two of many bioinformatics bridges that must be spanned between sequence and structure databases, the lack of encoding of the active biological unit, and the lack of encoding of the relationship of the observed structure to the parent gene. (See color plate.)

the way it draws bonds, especially when different algorithms and distance tolerances are used. The PDB file approach is minimalist in terms of the data stored in a record, and deciphering it often requires much more sophisticated logic than would be needed if the bonding information and chemical graph were explicitly specified in the record. Rarely is this logic properly implemented, and it may in fact be impossible to deal with all the exceptions in the PDB file format. Each exception to the bonding rules needs to be captured by complicated logic statements programmed on a case-by-case basis. The second approach to describing a molecule is what we call the explicit bonding approach, the method that is used in the database records of the Molecular Modeling Database (MMDB), which is, in turn, derived from the data in PDB. In the MMDB system, the data file contains all of its own explicit bonding information. MMDB uses a standard residue dictionary, a record of all the atoms and bonds in the polymer forms of amino acid and nucleic acid residues, plus end-terminal variants. Such data dictionaries are common in the specialized software used by scientists to solve X-ray or NMR structures. The software that reads in MMDB data can use the bonding information supplied in the dictionary to connect atoms together, without trying to enforce (or force) the rules of chemistry. As a result, the three-dimensional coordinate data are consistently interpreted by visualization software, regardless of

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type. This approach also lends itself to inherently simpler software, because exceptions to bonding rules are recorded within the database file itself and read in without the need for another layer of exception-handling codes. Scientists that are unfamiliar with structure data often expect all structures in the public databases to be of ‘‘textbook’’ quality. They are often surprised when parts of a structure are missing. The availability of a three-dimensional database record for a particular molecule does not ever imply its completeness. Structural completeness is strictly defined as follows: At least one coordinate value for each and every atom in the chemical graph is present. Structural completeness is quite rare in structure database records. Most X-ray structures lack coordinates for hydrogen atoms because the locations of hydrogens in space are not resolved by the experimental methods currently available. However, some modeling software can be used to predict the locations of these hydrogen atoms and reconstruct a structure record with the now-modeled hydrogens added. It is easy to identify the products of molecular modeling in structure databases. These often have overly complete coordinate data, usually with all possible hydrogen atoms present that could not have been found using an experimental method.

PDB: PROTEIN DATA BANK AT THE RESEARCH COLLABORATORY FOR STRUCTURAL BIOINFORMATICS (RCSB) Overview The use of computers in biology has its origins in biophysical methods, such as Xray crystallography. Thus, it is not surprising that the first ‘‘bioinformatics’’ database was built to store complex three-dimensional data. The Protein Data Bank, originally developed and housed at the Brookhaven National Laboratories, is now managed and maintained by the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB). RCSB is a collaborative effort involving scientists at the San Diego Supercomputing Center, Rutgers University, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The collection contains all publicly available three-dimensional structures of proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and a variety of other complexes experimentally determined by X-ray crystallographers and NMR spectroscopists. This section focuses briefly on the database and bioinformatics services offered through RCSB.

RCSB Database Services The World Wide Web site of the Protein Data Bank at the RCSB offers a number of services for submitting and retrieving three-dimensional structure data. The home page of the RCSB site provides links to services for depositing three-dimensional structures, information on how to obtain the status of structures undergoing processing for submission, ways to download the PDB database, and links to other relevant sites and software.

PDB Query and Reporting Starting at the RCSB home page, one can retrieve three-dimensional structures using two different query engines. The SearchLite system is the one most often used,

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providing text searching across the database. The SearchFields interface provides the additional ability to search specific fields within the database. Both of these systems report structure matches to the query in the form of Structure Summary pages, an example of which is shown in Figure 5.2. The RCSB Structure Summary page links are to other Web pages that themselves provide a large number of links, and it may be confusing to a newcomer to not only sift through all this information but to decide which information sources are the most relevant ones for biological discovery. Submitting Structures. For those who wish to submit three-dimensional structure information to PDB, the RCSB offers its ADIT service over the Web. This

Figure 5.2. Structure query from RCSB with the structure 1BNR (Bycroft et al., 1991). The Structure Explorer can link the user to a variety of other pages with information about this structure including sequence, visualization tools, structure similarity (neighbors), and structure quality information, which are listed on subsequent Web pages.

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service provides a data format check and can create automatic validation reports that provide diagnostics as to the quality of the structure, including bond distances and angles, torsion angles, nucleic acid comparisons, and crystal packing. Nucleic acid structures are accepted for deposition at NDB, the Nucleic Acids Database. It has been the apparent working policy of PDB to reject three-dimensional structures that result from computational three-dimensional modeling procedures rather than from an actual physical experiment; submitting data to the PDB from a nonexperimental computational modeling exercise is strongly discouraged. PDB-ID Codes. The structure record accessioning scheme of the Protein Data Bank is a unique four-character alphanumeric code, called a PDB-ID or PDB code. This scheme uses the digits 0 to 9 and the uppercase letters A to Z. This allows for over 1.3 million possible combinations and entries. Many older records have mnemonic names that make the structures easier to remember, such as 3INS, the record for insulin shown earlier. A different method is now being used to assign PDB-IDs, with the use of mnemonics apparently being abandoned. Database Searching, PDB File Retrieval, mmCIF File Retrieval, and Links. PDB’s search engine, the Structure Explorer, can be used to retrieve PDB records, as shown in Figure 5.2. The Structure Explorer is also the primary database of links to third-party annotation of PDB structure data. There are a number of links maintained in the Structure Explorer to Internet-based three-dimensional structure services on other Web sites. Figure 5.2 shows the Structure Summary for the protein barnase (1BNR; Bycroft et al., 1991). The Structure Explorer also provides links to special project databases maintained by researchers interested in related topics, such as structural evolution (FSSP; Holm and Sander, 1993), structure-structure similarity (DALI; Holm and Sander, 1996), and protein motions (Gerstein et al., 1994). Links to visualization tool-ready versions of the structure are provided, as well as authored two-dimensional images that can be very helpful to see how to orient a three-dimensional structure for best viewing of certain features such as binding sites.

Sequences from Structure Records PDB file-encoded sequences are notoriously troublesome for programmers to work with. Because completeness of a structure is not always guaranteed, PDB records contain two copies of the sequence information: an explicit sequence and an implicit sequence. Both are required to reconstruct the chemical graph of a biopolymer. Explicit sequences in a PDB file are provided in lines starting with the keyword SEQRES. Unlike other sequence databases, PDB records use the three-letter amino acid code, and nonstandard amino acids are found in many PDB record sequence entries with arbitrarily chosen three-letter names. Unfortunately, PDB records seem to lack sensible, consistent rules. In the past, some double-helical nucleic acid sequence entries in PDB were specified in a 3⬘-to-5⬘ order in an entry above the complementary strand, given in 5⬘-to-3⬘ order. Although the sequences may be obvious to a user as a representation of a double helix, the 3⬘-to-5⬘ explicit sequences are nonsense to a computer. Fortunately, the NDB project has fixed many of these types of problems, but the PDB data format is still open to ambiguity disasters from the standpoint of computer readability. As an aside, the most troubling glitch is the inability to encode element type separately from the atom name. Examples of where

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this becomes problematic include cases where atoms in structures having FAD or NAD cofactors are notorious for being interpreted as the wrong elements, such as neptunium (NP to Np), actinium (AC to Ac), and other nonsense elements. Because three-dimensional structures can have multiple biopolymer chains, to specify a discrete sequence, the user must provide the PDB chain identifier. SEQRES entries in PDB files have a chain identifier, a single uppercase letter or blank space, identifying each individual biopolymer chain in an entry. For the structure 3INS shown in Figure 5.1, there are two insulin molecules in the record. The 3INS record contains sequences labeled A, B, C, and D. Knowledge of the biochemistry of insulin is required to understand that protein chains A and B are in fact derived from the same gene and that a posttranslational modification cuts the proinsulin sequence into the A and B chains observed in the PDB record. This information is not recorded in a three-dimensional structure record, nor in the sequence record for that matter. A place for such critical biological information is now being made within the BIND database (Bader and Hogue, 2000). The one-letter chain-naming scheme has difficulties with the enumeration of large oligomeric three-dimensional structures, such as viral capsids, as one quickly runs out of single-letter chain identifiers. The implicit sequences in PDB records are contained in the embedded stereochemistry of the (x, y, z) data and names of each ATOM record in the PDB file. The implicit sequences are useful in resolving explicit sequence ambiguities such as the backward encoding of nucleic acid sequences or in verifying nonstandard amino acids. In practice, many PDB file viewers (such as RasMol) reconstruct the chemical graph of a protein in a PDB record using only the implicit sequence, ignoring the explicit SEQRES information. If this software then is asked to print the sequence of certain incomplete molecules, it will produce a nonphysiological and biologically irrelevant sequence. The implicit sequence, therefore, is not sufficient to reconstruct the complete chemical graph. Consider an example in which the sequence ELVISISALIVES is represented in the SEQRES entry of a hypothetical PDB file, but the coordinate information is missing all (x, y, z) locations for the subsequence ISA. Software that reads the implicit sequence will often report the PDB sequence incorrectly from the chemical graph as ELVISLIVES. A test structure to determine whether software looks only at the implicit sequence is 3TS1 (Brick et al., 1989) as shown in the Java threedimensional structure viewer WebMol in Figure 5.3. Here, both the implicit and explicit sequences in the PDB file to the last residue with coordinates are correctly displayed.

Validating PDB Sequences To properly validate a sequence from a PDB record, one must first derive the implicit sequence in the ATOM records. This is a nontrivial processing step. If the structure has gaps because of lack of completeness, there may only be a set of implicit sequence fragments for a given chain. Each of these fragments must be aligned to the explicit sequence of the same chain provided within the SEQRES entry. This treatment will produce the complete chemical graph, including the parts of the biological sequence that may be missing coordinate data. This kind of validation is done on creation of records for the MMDB and mmCIF databases. The best source of validated protein and nucleic acid sequences in single-letter code derived from PDB structure records is NCBI’s MMDB service, which is part

M M D B : M O L E C U L A R M O D E L I N G D ATA B A S E AT N C B I

Figure 5.3. Testing a three-dimensional viewer for sequence numbering artifacts with the structure 3TS1 (Brick et al., 1989). WebMol, a Java applet, correctly indicates both the explicit and implicit sequences of the structure. Note the off-by-two difference in the numbering in the two columns of numbers in the inset window on the lower right. The actual sequence embedded in the PDB file is 419 residues long, but the COOH-terminal portion of the protein is lacking coordinates; it also has two missing residues. (See color plate.)

of the Entrez system. The sequence records from our insulin example have database accessions constructed systematically and can be retrieved from the protein sequence division of Entrez using the accessions pdb|3INS|A, pdb|3INS|B, pdb|3INS|C, and pdb|3INS|D. PDB files also have references in db xref records to sequences in the SWISS-PROT protein database. Note that the SWISSPROT sequences will not necessarily correspond to the structure, since the validation process described here is not carried out when these links are made! Also, note that many PDB files currently have ambiguously indicated taxonomy, reflecting the presence in some of three-dimensional structures of complexes of molecules that come from different species. The PDBeast project at NCBI has incorporated the correct taxonomic information for each biopolymer found within a given structure.

MMDB: MOLECULAR MODELING DATABASE AT NCBI NCBI’s Molecular Modeling Database (MMDB; Hogue et al., 1996) is an integral part of NCBI’s Entrez information retrieval system (cf. Chapter 7). It is a compilation of all the Brookhaven Protein Data Bank (Bernstein et al., 1977) three-dimensional

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structures of biomolecules from crystallographic and NMR studies. MMDB records are in ASN.1 format (Rose, 1990) rather than in PDB format. Despite this, PDBformatted files can also be obtained from MMDB. By representing the data in ASN.1 format, MMDB records have value-added information compared with the original PDB entries. Additional information includes explicit chemical graph information resulting from an extensive suite of validation procedures, the addition of uniformly derived secondary structure definitions, structure domain information, citation matching to MEDLINE, and the molecule-based assignment of taxonomy to each biologically derived protein or nucleic acid chain.

Free Text Query of Structure Records The MMDB database can be searched from the NCBI home page using Entrez. (MMDB is also referred to as the NCBI Structure division.) Search fields in MMDB include PDB and MMDB ID codes, free text from the original PDB REMARK records, author name, and other bibliographic fields. For more specific, fielded queries, the RCSB site is recommended.

MMDB Structure Summary MMDB’s Web interface provides a Structure Summary page for each MMDB structure record, as shown in Figure 5.4. MMDB Structure Summary pages provide the FASTA-formatted sequences for each chain in the structure, links to MEDLINE references, links to the 3DBAtlas record and the Brookhaven PDB site, links to protein or nucleic acid sequence neighbors for each chain in the structure, and links to VAST structure-structure comparisons for each domain on each chain in the structure.

BLAST Against PDB Sequences: New Sequence Similarities When a researcher wishes to find a structure related to a new sequence, NCBI’s BLAST (Altschul et al., 1990) can be used because the BLAST databases contain a copy of all the validated sequences from MMDB. The BLAST Web interface can be used to perform the query by pasting a sequence in FASTA format into the sequence entry box and then selecting the ‘‘pdb’’ sequence database. This will yield a search against all the validated sequences in the current public structure database. More information on performing BLAST runs can be found in Chapter 8.

Entrez Neighboring: Known Sequence Similarities If one is starting with a sequence that is already in Entrez, BLAST has, in essence, already been performed. Structures that are similar in sequence to a given protein sequence can be found by means of Entrez’s neighboring facilities. Details on how to perform such searches are presented in Chapter 7.

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Figure 5.4. Structure query from NCBI with the structure 1BNR (Bycroft et al., 1991). The Structure Summary links the user to RCSB through the PDB ID link, as well as to validated sequence files for each biopolymer, sequence, and three-dimensional structure neighbors through the VAST system. This system is more efficient than the RCSB system (Fig. 5.2) for retrieval because visualization, sequence, and structure neighbor links are made directly on the structure summary page and do not require fetching more Web pages.

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STRUCTURE FILE FORMATS PDB The PDB file format is column oriented, like that of the punched cards used by early FORTRAN programmers. The exact file format specification is available through the PDB Web site. Most software developed by structural scientists is written in FORTRAN, whereas the rest of the bioinformatics world has adopted other languages, such as those based on C. PDB files are often a paradox: they look rather easy to parse, but they have a few nasty surprises, as already alluded to in this chapter. To the uninitiated, the most obvious problem is that the information about biopolymer bonds is missing, obliging one to program in the rules of chemistry, clues to the identity of each atom given by the naming conventions of PDB, and robust exception handling. PDB parsing software often needs lists of synonyms and tables of exceptions to correctly interpret the information. However this chapter is not intended to be a manual of how to construct a PDB parser. Two newer chemical-based formats have emerged: mmCIF (MacroMolecular Chemical Interchange Format) and MMDB (Molecular Modeling Database Format). Both of these file formats are attempts to modernize PDB information. Both start by using data description languages, which are consistently machine parsable. The data description languages use ‘‘tag value’’ pairs, which are like variable names and values used in a programming language. In both cases, the format specification is composed in a machine-readable form, and there is software that uses this format specification document to validate incoming streams of data. Both file formats are populated from PDB file data using the strategy of alignment-based reconstruction of the implicit ATOM and HETATM chemical graphs with the explicit SEQRES chemical graphs, together with extensive validation, which is recorded in the file. As a result, both of these file formats are superior for integrating with biomolecular sequence databases over PDB format data files, and their use in future software is encouraged.

mmCIF The mmCIF (Bourne et al., 1995) file format was originally intended to be a biopolymer extension of the CIF (Chemical Interchange Format; Hall et al., 1991) familiar to small-molecule crystallographers and is based on a subset of the STAR syntax (Hall et al., 1991). CIF software for parsing and validating format specifications is not forward-compatible with mmCIF, since these have different implementations for the STAR syntax. The underlying data organization in an mmCIF record is a set of relational tables. The mmCIF project refers to their format specification as the mmCIF dictionary, kept on the Web at the Nucleic Acids Database site. The mmCIF dictionary is a large document containing specifications for holding the information stored in PDB files as well as many other data items derivable from the primary coordinate data, such as bond angles. The mmCIF data specification gives this data a consistent interface, which has been used to implement the NDB Protein Finder, a Web-based query format in a relational database style, and is also used as the basis for the new RCSB software systems. Validating an incoming stream of data against the large mmCIF dictionary entails significant computational time; hence, mmCIF is probably destined to be an archival

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and advanced query format. Software libraries for reading mmCIF tables into relational tables into memory in FORTRAN and C are available.

MMDB The MMDB file format is specified by means of the ASN.1 data description language (Rose, 1990), which is used in a variety of other settings, surprisingly enough including applications in telecommunications and automotive manufacturing. Because the US National Library of Medicine also uses ASN.1 data specifications for sequence and bibliographic information, the MMDB format borrows certain elements from other data specifications, such as the parts used in describing bibliographic references cited in the data record. ASN.1 files can appear as human-readable text files or as a variety of binary and packed binary files that can be decoded by any hardware platform. The MMDB standard residue dictionary is a lookup table of information about the chemical graphs of standard biopolymer residue types. The MMDB format specification is kept inside the NCBI toolkit distribution, but a browser is available over the Web for a quick look. The MMDB ASN.1 specification is much more compact and has fewer data items than the mmCIF dictionary, avoiding derivable data altogether. In contrast to the relational table design of mmCIF, the MMDB data records are structured as hierarchical records. In terms of performance, ASN.1-formatted MMDB files provide for much faster input and output than do mmCIF or PDB records. Their nested hierarchy requires fewer validation steps at load time than the relational scheme in mmCIF or in the PDB file format; hence, ASN.1 files are ideal for threedimensional structure database browsing. A complete application programming interface is available for MMDB as part of the NCBI toolkit, containing a wide variety of C code libraries and applications. Both an ASN.1 input/output programming interface layer and a molecular computing layer (MMDB-API) are present in the NCBI toolkit. The NCBI toolkit supports x86 and alpha-based Windows’ platforms, Macintosh 68K and PowerPC CPUs, and a wide variety of UNIX platforms. The three-dimensional structure database viewer (Cn3D) is an MMDB-API-based application with source code included in the NCBI toolkit.

VISUALIZING STRUCTURAL INFORMATION Multiple Representation Styles We often use multiple styles of graphical representation to see different aspects of molecular structure. Typical images of a protein structure are shown in Figure 5.5 (see also color plate). Here, the enzyme barnase 1BN1 (Buckle et al., 1993) appears both in wire-frame and space-filling model formats, as produced by RasMol (Sayle and Milner-White, 1995). Because the protein structure record 1BN1 has three barnase molecules in the crystallographic unit, the PDB file has been hand-edited using a text editor to delete the superfluous chains. Editing data files is an accepted and widespread practice in three-dimensional molecular structure software, forcing the three-dimensional structure viewer to show what the user wants. In this case, the crystallographic data

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Figure 5.5. A constellation of viewing alternatives using RasMol with a portion of the barnase structure 1BN1 (Buckle et al., 1993). 1BN1 has three barnase molecules in the asymmetric unit. For this figure, the author edited the PDB file to remove two extra barnase molecules to make the images. Like most crystal structures, 1BN1 has no hydrogen locations. (a) Barnase in CPK coloring (element-based coloring) in a wire-frame representation. (b) Barnase in a space-filling representation. (c) Barnase in an ␣-carbon backbone representation, colored by residue type. The command line was used to select all the tryptophan residues, render them with ‘‘sticks,’’ color them purple, and show a dot surface representation. (d) Barnase in a cartoon format showing secondary structure, ␣-helices in red; ␤strands in yellow. Note that in all cases the default atom or residue coloring schemes used are at the discretion of the author of the software. (See color plate.)

recorded in the three-dimensional structure does not represent the functional biological unit. In our example, the molecule barnase is a monomer; however, we have three molecules in the crystallographic unit. In our other example, 3TS1 (Brick et al., 1989) (Fig. 5.3), the molecule is a dimer, but only one of the symmetric subunits is recorded in the PDB file. The wire-frame image in Figure 5.5a clearly shows the chemistry of the barnase structure, and we can easily trace of the sequence of barnase on the image of its biopolymer in an interactive computer display. The space-filling model in Figure


5.5b gives a good indication of the size and surface of the biopolymer, yet it is difficult to follow the details of chemistry and bonding in this representation. The composite illustration in Figure 5.5c shows an ␣-carbon backbone in a typical pseudo-structure representation. The lines drawn are not actual chemical bonds, but they guide us along the path made by the ␣-carbons of the protein backbone. These are also called ‘‘virtual bonds.’’ The purple tryptophan side chains have been selected and drawn together with a dot surface. This composite illustration highlights the volume taken up by the three tryptophan side chains in three hydrophobic core regions of barnase, while effectively hiding most of the structure’s details. The ribbon model in Figure 5.5d shows the organization of the structural path of the secondary structure elements of the protein chain (␣-helix and ␤-sheet regions). This representation is very often used, with the arrowheads indicating the N-to-C-terminal direction of the secondary structure elements, and is most effective for identifying secondary structures within complex topologies. The variety of information conveyed by the different views in Figure 5.5 illustrates the need to visualize three-dimensional biopolymer structure data in unique ways that are not common to other three-dimensional graphics applications. This requirement often precludes the effective use of software from the ‘‘macroscopic world,’’ such as computer-aided design (CAD) or virtual reality modeling language (VRML) packages.

Picture the Data: Populations, Degeneracy, and Dynamics Both X-ray and NMR techniques infer three-dimensional structure from a synchronized population of molecules—synchronized in space as an ordered crystal lattice or synchronized in behavior as nuclear spin states are organized by an external magnetic field. In both cases, information is gathered from the population as a whole. The coordinate (x, y, z) locations of atoms in a structure are derived using numerical methods. These fit the expected chemical graph of the sample into the three-dimensional data derived from the experimental data. The expected chemical graph can include a mixture of biopolymer sequence-derived information as well as the chemical graph of any other known small molecules present in the sample, such as substrates, prosthetic groups, and ions. One somewhat unexpected result of the use of molecular populations is the assignment of degenerate coordinates in a database record, i.e., more than one coordinate location for a single atom in the chemical graph. This is recorded when the population of molecules has observable conformational heterogeneity.

NMR Models and Ensembles Figure 5.6 (see also color plate) presents four three-dimensional structures (images on the left were determined using X-ray crystallography and the right using NMR). The NMR structures on the left appear ‘‘fuzzy.’’ In fact, there are several different, complete structures piled one on top of another in these images. Each structure is referred to as a model, and the set of models is an ensemble. Each model in the ensemble is a chirally correct, plausible structure that fits the underlying NMR data as well as any other model in the ensemble. The images from the ensemble of an NMR structure (Fig. 5.6, b and d) show the dynamic variation of a molecule in solution. This reflects the conditions of the

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Figure 5.6. A comparison of three-dimensional structure data obtained by crystallography (left) and NMR methods (right), as seen in Cn3D. (a) The crystal structure 1BRN (Buckle and Fersht, 1994) has two barnase molecules in the asymmetric unit, although these are not dimers in solution. The image is rendered with an ␣-carbon backbone trace colored by secondary structure (green helices and yellow sheets), and the amino acid residues are shown with a wire-frame rendering, colored by residue type. (b) The NMR structure 1BNR (Bycroft et al., 1991) showing barnase in solution. Here, there are 20 different models in the ensemble of structures. The coloring and rendering are exactly as the crystal structure to its left. (c) The crystal structure 109D (Quintana et al., 1991) showing a complex between a minor-groove binding bis-benzimidazole drug and a DNA fragment. Note the phosphate ion in the lower left corner. (d) The NMR structure 107D showing four models of a complex between a different minor-groove binding compound (Duocarmycin A) and a different DNA fragment. It appears that the three-dimensional superposition of these ensembles is incorrectly shifted along the axis of the DNA, an error in PDB’s processing of this particular file. (See color plate.)


experiment: molecules free in solution with freedom to pursue dynamic conformational changes. In contrast, the X-ray structures (Fig. 5.6, a and c) provide a very strong mental image of a static molecule. This also reflects the conditions of the experiment, an ordered crystal constrained in its freedom to explore its conformational dynamics. These mental images direct our interpretation of structure. If we measure distance between two atoms using an X-ray structure, we may get a single value. However, we can get a range of values for the same distance in each model looking at an ensemble of an NMR structure. Clearly, our interpretation of this distance can be dependent on the source of the three-dimensional structure data! It is prudent to steer clear of any software that ignores or fails to show the population degeneracy present in structure database records, since the absence of such information can further skew biological interpretations. Measuring the distance between two atoms in an NMR structure using software that hides the other members of the ensemble will give only one value and not the true range of distance observed by the experimentalist.

Correlated Disorder Typically, X-ray structures have one and only one model. Some subsets of atoms, however, may have degenerate coordinates, which we will refer to as correlated disorder (Fig. 5.7a; see also color plate). Many X-ray structure database records show correlated disorder. Both correlated disorder and ensembles are often ignored by three-dimensional molecular graphics software. Some programs show only the first model in an ensemble, or the first location of each atom in a correlated disorder set, ignoring the rest of the degenerate coordinate values. Worse still, sometimes, erroneous bonds are drawn between the degenerate locations, making a mess of the structure, as seen in Figure 5.7b.

Local Dynamics A single technique can be used to constrain the conformation of some atoms differently from others in the same structure. For example, an internal atom or a backbone atom that is locked in by a multitude of interactions may appear largely invariant in NMR or X-ray data, whereas an atom on the surface of the molecule may have much more conformational freedom (consider the size of the smears of different residues in Fig. 5.6b). Interior protein side chains typically show much less flexibility in ensembles, so it might be concluded that the interiors of proteins lack conformational dynamics altogether. However, a more sensitive, biophysical method, time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy of single tryptophan residues, has a unique ability to detect heterogeneity (but not the actual coordinates) of the tryptophan side-chain conformation. Years of study using this method has shown that, time and time again, populations of interior tryptophans in pure proteins are more often in heterogeneous conformations than not (Beechem and Brand, 1985). This method was shown to be able to detect rotamers of tryptophan within single crystals of erabutoxin, where Xray crystallography could not (Dahms and Szabo, 1995). When interpreting threedimensional structure data, remember that heterogeneity does persist in the data, and that the NMR and X-ray methods can be blind to all but the most populated conformations in the sample.

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Figure 5.7. An example of crystallographic correlated disorder encoded in PDB files. This is chain C of the HIV protease structure 5HVP (Fitzgerald et al., 1990). This chain is in asymmetric binding site and can orient itself in two different directions. Therefore, it has a single chemical graph, but each atom can be in one of two different locations. (a) The correct bonding is shown with an MMDB-generated Kinemage file; magenta and red are the correlated disorder ensembles as originally recorded by the depositor, bonding calculated using standard-residue dictionary matching. (b) Bonding of the same chain in RasMol, wherein the disorder ensemble information is ignored, and all coordinates are displayed and all possible bonds are bonded together. (See color plate.)

DATABASE STRUCTURE VIEWERS In the past several years, the software used to examine and display structure information has been greatly improved in terms of the quality of visualization and, more importantly, in terms of being able to relate sequence information to structure information.

D ATA B A S E S T R U C T U R E V I E W E R S

Visualization Tools Although the RCSB Web site provides a Java-based three-dimensional applet for visualizing PDB data, the applet does not currently support the display of nonprotein structures. For this and other reasons, the use of RasMol v2.7 is instead recommended for viewing structural data downloaded from RCSB; more information on RasMol appears in the following section. If a Java-based viewer is preferred, WebMol is recommended, and an example of WebMol output is shown in Figure 5.3. With the advent of many homemade visualization programs that can easily be downloaded from the Internet, the reader is strongly cautioned to only use mature, well-established visualization tools that have been thoroughly tested and have undergone critical peer review.

RasMol and RasMol-Based Viewers As mentioned above, several viewers for examining PDB files are available (Sanchez-Ferrer et al., 1995). The most popular one is RasMol (Sayle and Milner-White, 1995). RasMol represents a breakthrough in software-driven three-dimensional graphics, and its source code is a recommended study material for anyone interested in high-performance three-dimensional graphics. RasMol treats PDB data with extreme caution and often recomputes information, making up for inconsistencies in the underlying database. It does not try to validate the chemical graph of sequences or structures encoded in PDB files. RasMol does not perform internally either dictionary-based standard residue validations or alignment of explicit and implicit sequences. RasMol 2.7.1 contains significant improvements that allow one to display information in correlated disorder ensembles and select different NMR models. It also is capable of reading mmCIF-formatted three-dimensional structure files and is thus the viewer of choice for such data. Other data elements encoded in PDB files, such as disulfide bonds, are recomputed based on rules of chemistry, rather than validated. RasMol contains many excellent output formats and can be used with the Molscript program (Kraulis, 1991) to make wonderful PostScript娃 ribbon diagrams for publication. To make optimal use of RasMol, however, one must master its command-line language, a familiar feature of many legacy three-dimensional structure programs. Several new programs are becoming available and are free for academic users. Based on RasMol’s software-driven three-dimensional-rendering algorithms and sparse PDB parser, these programs include Chime娃, a Netscape娃 plug-in. Another program, WebMol, is a Java-based three-dimensional structure viewer apparently based on RasMol-style rendering, as seen in Figure 5.3.

MMDB Viewer: Cn3D Cn3D (for ‘‘see in 3-D’’) is a three-dimensional structure viewer used for viewing MMDB data records. Because the chemical graph ambiguities in data in PDB entries have been removed to make MMDB data records and because all the bonding information is explicit, Cn3D has the luxury of being able to display three-dimensional database structures consistently, without the parsing, validation, and exception-handling overhead required of programs that read PDB files. Cn3D’s default image of

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a structure is more intelligently displayed because it works without fear of misrepresenting the data. However, Cn3D is dependent on the complete chemical graph information in the ASN.1 records of MMDB, and, as such, it does not read in PDB files. Cn3D 3.0 has a much richer feature set than its predecessors, and it now allows selection of subsets of molecular structure and independent settings of rendering and coloring aspects of that feature. It has state-saving capabilities, making it possible to color and render a structure, and then save the information right into the ASN.1 structure record, a departure from the hand-editing of PDB files or writing scripts. This information can be shared with other Cn3D users on different platforms. The images shown in Figures 5.1 and 5.6 are from Cn3D 3.0, now based on OpenGL three-dimensional graphics. This provides graphics for publication-quality images that are much better than previous versions, but the original Viewer3D version of Cn3D 3.0 is available for computers that are not capable of displaying OpenGL or that are too slow. Also unique to Cn3D is a capacity to animate three-dimensional structures. Cn3D’s animation controls resemble tape recorder controls and are used for displaying quickly the members of a multiple structure ensemble one after the other, making an animated three-dimensional movie. The GO button makes the images animated, and the user can rotate or zoom the structure while it is playing the animation. This is particularly useful for looking at NMR ensembles or a series of time steps of structures undergoing motions or protein folding. The animation feature also allows Cn3D to provide superior multiple structure alignment when used together with the VAST structure-structure comparison system, described later in this chapter.

Other 3D Viewers: Mage, CAD, and VRML A variety of file formats have been used to present three-dimensional biomolecular structure data lacking in chemistry-specific data representations. These are viewed in generic three-dimensional data viewers such as those used for ‘‘macroscopic’’ data, like engineering software or virtual-reality browsers. File formats such as VRML contain three-dimensional graphical display information but little or no information about the underlying chemical graph of a molecule. Furthermore, it is difficult to encode the variety of rendering styles in such a file; one needs a separate VRML file for a space-filling model of a molecule, a wire-frame model, a ball-and-stick model, and so on, because each explicit list of graphics objects (cylinders, lines, spheres) must be contained in the file. Biomolecular three-dimensional structure database records are currently not compatible with ‘‘macroscopic’’ software tools such as those based on CAD software. Computer-aided design software represents a mature, robust technology, generally superior to the available molecular structure software. However, CAD software and file formats in general are ill-suited to examine the molecular world, owing to the lack of certain ‘‘specialty’’ views and analytical functions built in for the examination of details of protein structures.

Making Presentation Graphics To get the best possible publication-quality picture out of any molecular graphics software, first consider whether a bitmap or a vector-based graphic image is needed. Bitmaps are made by programs like RasMol and Cn3D—they reproduce exactly

STRUCTURE SIMILARITY SEARCHING

what you see on the screen, and are usually the source of trouble in terms of pixellation (‘‘the jaggies’’), as shown in Figure 5.7, a bitmap of 380–400 pixels. Highquality print resolution is usually at 300–600 dots per inch, but monitors have far less information in pixels per inch (normally 72 dpi), so a big image on a screen is quite tiny when printed at the same resolution on a printer. Expanding the image to fit a page causes exaggeration of pixel steps on diagonal lines. The best advice for bitmaps is to use as big a monitor/desktop as possible, maximizing the number of pixels included in the image. This may mean borrowing a colleagues’ 21-in monitor or using a graphics card that offers a ‘‘virtual desktop’’ that is larger than the monitor being used in pixel count. In any case, always fill the entire screen with the viewer window before saving a bitmap image for publication.

ADVANCED STRUCTURE MODELING Tools that go beyond simple visualization are now emerging and are freely available. Biologists often want to display structures with information about charge distribution, surface accessibility, and molecular shape; they also want to be able to perform simple mutagenesis experiments and more complex structure modeling. SwissPDB Viewer, shown in Figure 5.8, also known as Deep View, is provided free of charge to academics and can address a good number of these needs. It is a multi platform (Mac, Win, and Linux) OpenGL-based tool that has the ability to generate molecular surfaces, align multiple proteins, use scoring functions, as well as do simple, fast modeling, including site-directed mutagenesis and more complex modeling such as loop rebuilding. An excellent tutorial for SwissPDB Viewer developed by Gale Rhodes is one of the best starting points for making the best use of this tool. It has the capability to dump formatted files for the free ray-tracing software POV-Ray, and it can be used to make stunning images of molecular structures, easily suitable for a journal cover.

STRUCTURE SIMILARITY SEARCHING Although a sequence-sequence similarity program provides an alignment of two sequences, a structure-structure similarity program provides a three-dimensional structural superposition. This superposition results from a set of three-dimensional rotation-translation matrix operations that superimpose similar parts of the structure. A conventional sequence alignment can be derived from three-dimensional superposition by finding the ␣-carbons in the protein backbone that are superimposed in space. Structure similarity search services are based on the premise that some similarity metric can be computed between two structures and used to assess their similarity, much in the same way a BLAST alignment is scored. A structure similarity search service can take a three-dimensional protein structure, either already in PDB or a new one, and compare that structure, making three-dimensional superpositions with other structures in the database and reporting the best match without knowing anything about the sequence. If a match is made between two structures that are not related by any measurable sequence similarity, it is indeed a surprising discovery. For this type of data to be useful, the similarity metric must be meaningful. A large fraction of structures, for example, have ␤-sheets. Although a similar substructure may include a single ␤-hairpin turn with two strands, one can find an incredibly

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Figure 5.8. SwissPDB Viewer 3.51 with OpenGL, showing the calmodulin structure 2CLN. The binding of the inhibitor TFP is shown in yellow. The side panel allows great control over the rendering of the structure image, and menus provide a wealth of options and tools for structure superposition and modeling including mutagenesis and loop modeling, making it a complete structure modeling and analysis package. (See color plate.)

large number of such similarities in the PDB database, so these similarities are simply not surprising or informative. A number of structure similarity searching systems are now available on the Internet, and almost all of them can be found following links from the RCSB Structure Summary page. The process of similarity searching presents some interesting high-performance computational challenges, and this is addressed in different ways, ranging from human curation, as the SCOP system provides, to fully automated systems, such as DALI, SCOP, or the CE system provided by RCSB. The Vector Alignment Search Tool (VAST; Gibrat et al., 1996) provides a similarity measure of three-dimensional structure. It uses vectors derived from secondary structure elements, with no sequence information being used in the search. VAST is capable of finding structural similarities when no sequence similarity is detected. VAST, like BLAST, is run on all entries in the database in an N × N manner, and the results are stored for fast retrieval using the Entrez interface. More than 20,000 domain substructures within the current three-dimensional structure database have been compared with one another using the VAST algorithm, the structure-structure (Fig. 5.9) superpositions recorded, and alignments of sequence derived from the

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one another by sequence. The list may be sorted by a number of parameters, including RMSD from the query structure, number of identical residues, and the raw VAST score. More values can be displayed in the list as well. Cn3D is shown on the right, launched from the Web page with the structures 1RGE and 1B2S. Menu options show how Cn3D can highlight residues in the superposition (top right) and in the alignment (bottom right). The Cn3D drawing settings are shown in the top middle, where one can toggle structures on or off in the superposition window. (See color plate.)

Figure 5.9. VAST structure neighbors of barnase. On the left is the query window obtained by clicking on the Structure Neighbors link from Figure 5.4. Structures to superposition are selected with the check boxes on the left, and Cn3D is launched from the top of the Web page. At the bottom left, controls that change the query are shown from the bottom of the VAST results page. The results shown here are selected as examples from a nonredundant set based on a BLAST probability of 10⫺7, for the most concise display of hits that are not closely related to

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superposition. The VAST algorithm focuses on similarities that are surprising in the statistical sense. One does not waste time examining many similarities of small substructures that occur by chance in protein structure comparison. For example, very many small segments of ␤-sheets have obvious, but not surprising, similarities. The similarities detected by VAST are often examples of remote homology, undetectable by sequence comparison. As such, they may provide a broader view of the structure, function, and evolution of a protein family. The VAST system stands out amongst these comparative tools because (a) it has a clearly defined similarity metric leading to surprising relationships, (b) it has an adjustable interface that shows nonredundant hits for a quick first look at the most interesting relationships, without seeing the same relationships lots of times, (c) it provides a domain-based structure comparison rather than a whole protein comparison, and (d) it has the capability to integrate with Cn3D as a visualization tool for inspecting surprising structure relationships in detail. The interface between a VAST hit list search and the Cn3D structure superposition interface can be seen in Figure 5.9. In addition to a listing of similar structures, VAST-derived structure neighbors contain detailed residue-by-residue alignments and three-dimensional transformation matrices for structural superposition. In practice, refined alignments from VAST appear conservative, choosing a highly similar ‘‘core’’ substructure compared with DALI (Holm and Sander, 1996) superpositions. With the VAST superposition, one easily identifies regions in which protein evolution has modified the structure, whereas DALI superpositions may be more useful for comparisons involved in making structural models. Both VAST and DALI superpositions are excellent tools for investigating relationships in protein structure, especially when used together with the SCOP (Murzin et al., 1995) database of protein families.

INTERNET RESOURCES FOR TOPICS PRESENTED IN CHAPTER 5 BIND Imagemagick mmCif Project National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) NCBI Toolkit Nucleic Acids Database (NDB) POV-RayAY Protein Data Bank at RCSB RasMol SwissPDB Viewer/Deep View WebMol

http://bioinfo.mshri.on.ca http://http://www.wizards.dupont.com/cristy/ ImageMagick.html http://ndbserver.rutgers.edu/NDB/mmcif/index.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Toolbox http://ndbserver.rutgers.edu/ http://www.povray.org/ http://www.rcsb.org/ http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/ http://http://www.expasy.ch/spdbv/mainpage.html http://www.cmpharm.ucsf.edu/⬃walther/webmol/

REFERENCES

PROBLEM SET 1. Calmodulin is a calcium-dependent protein that modulates other protein activity via protein interactions. The overall structure of calmodulin is variable, and is modulated by calcium. An NMR structure of calmodulin is found in PDB record 2BBN, complexed with a peptide. How many models are in this structure? Find other calmodulin structures from the PDB site, and inspect them using RasMol. How many ‘‘gross,’’ unique conformations can this protein be found in? Where, in terms of secondary structure, is the site of the largest structural change? 2. The black beetle virus coat protein (pdb|2BBV) forms a very interesting trianglular shape. Using VAST, examine the list of neighbors to the A chain. Examine some of the pairwise alignments in Cn3D. What is the extent of the similarity? What does this list of neighbors and the structure similarity shared by these proteins suggest about the origin and evolution of eukaryotic viruses? 3. Compare substrate binding in Rossman fold structures, between the tyrosinyl-5⬘adenylate of tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase and the NADH of malate dehydrogenase. Describe the similarities and differences between the two substrates. Do you think these are homologous structures or are they related by convergent evolution? 4. Ribosomal protein synthesis or enzyme-based peptide synthesis—which came first? Repeat the analysis you did for question 3, examining the difference between substrates bound to tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase and D-Ala:D-Ala ligase (pdb|1IOV). Note the substrate is bound to domains 2 and 3 of 1IOV, but domain 1 is aligned with 3TS1. What does the superposition suggest about the activity of domain 1 of 1IOV? According to VAST, what is similar to domain 2 of 1IOV? How do you think D-Ala:D-Ala ligase arose in evolution? Speculate on whether enzymecatalyzed protein synthesis such as that seen in 1IOV arose before or after ribosomal protein synthesis.

REFERENCES Ahmed, F. R., Przybylska, M., Rose, D. R., Birnbaum, G. I., Pippy, M. E., and MacManus, J. P. (1990). Structure of oncomodulin refined at 1.85 angstroms resolution. An example of extensive molecular aggregation via Ca2. J. Mol. Biol. 216, 127–140. Altschul, S. F., Gish, W., Miller, W., Myers, E. W., and Lipman, D. J. (1990). Basic local alignment search tool. J. Mol. Biol. 215, 403–410. Bader, G. D., and Hogue, C. W. V. (2000). BIND, a data specification for storing and describing biomolecular interactions, molecular complexes and pathways. Bioinformatics 16, 465–477. Beechem, J. M., and Brand, L. (1985). Time-resolved fluorescence of proteins. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 54, 43–71. Bernstein, F. C., Koetzle, T. F., Williams, G. J. B., Meyer, E. F., Jr., Brice, M. D., Rodgers, J. R., Kennard, O., Shimanouchi, T., and Tasumi, M. (1977). The Protein Data Bank. J. Mol. Biol. 112, 535–542.

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Bourne, P. E., Berman, H. M., McMahon, B., Watenpaugh, K. D., Westbrook, J., and Fitzgerald, P. M. D. (1995). The macromolecular crystallographic information file (mmCIF). Methods Enzymol. 277. Branden, C., and Tooze, J. (1999). Introduction to Protein Structure (New York: Garland). Brick, P., Bhat, T. N., and Blow, D. M. (1989). Structure of tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase refined at 2.3 angstroms resolution. Interaction of the enzyme with the tyrosyl adenylate intermediate. J. Mol. Biol. 208, 83–98. Buckle, A. M., and Fersht, A. R. (1994). Subsite binding in an RNase: Structure of a barnasetetranucleotide complex at 1.76-angstroms resolution. Biochemistry 33, 1644–1653. Buckle, A. M., Henrick, K., and Fersht, A. R. (1993). Crystal structural analysis of mutations in the hydrophobic cores of barnase. J. Mol. Biol. 23, 847–860. Bycroft, M., Ludvigsen, S., Fersht, A. R., and Poulsen, F. M. (1991). Determination of the three-dimensional solution structure of barnase using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Biochemistry 30, 8697–8701. Dahms, T., and Szabo, A. G. (1995). Conformational heterogeneity of tryptophan in a protein crystal. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 117, 2321–2326. Fitzgerald, P. M., McKeever, B. M., Van Middlesworth, J. F., Springer, J. P., Heimbach, J. C., Leu, C. T., Herber, W. K., Dixon, R. A., and Darke, P. L. (1990). Crystallographic analysis of a complex between human immunodeficiency virus type 1 protease and acetylpepstatin at 2.0-angstroms resolution. J. Biol. Chem. 265, 14209–14219. Gerstein, M., Lesk, A., and Chothia, C. (1994). Structural mechanisms for domain movements in proteins. Biochemistry 33, 6739–6749. Gibrat, J. F., Madej, T., and Bryant, S. H. (1996). Surprising similarities in structure comparison. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 6, 377–385. Hall, S. R. (1991). The STAR file: A new format for electronic data transfer and archiving. J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 31, 326–333. Hall, S. R., Allen, A. H., and Brown, I. D. (1991). The crystallographic information file (CIF): A new standard archive file for crystallography. Acta Crystallogr. Sect. A 47, 655–685. Hogue, C. W. V., Ohkawa, H., and Bryant, S. H. (1996). A dynamic look at structures: WWWEntrez and the Molecular Modeling Database. Trends Biochem. Sci. 21, 226–229. Hogue, C. W. V (1997) Cn3D: a new generation of three-dimensional molecular structure viewer. Trends Biochem. Sci. 22, 314–316. Holm, L., and Sander, C. (1993). Protein structure comparison by alignment of distance matrices. J. Mol. Biol. 233, 123–138. Holm, L., and Sander, C. (1996). The FSSP database: Fold classification based on structurestructure alignment of proteins. Nucl. Acids Res. 24, 206–210. Issacs, N. W., and Agarwal, R. C. (1978). Experience with fast Fourier least squares in the refinement of the crystal structure of rhombohedral 2 zinc insulin at 1.5 angstroms resolution. Acta Crystallogr. Sect. A 34, 782. Kraulis, P. J. (1991). MOLSCRIPT: A program to produce both detailed and schematic plots of protein structures. J. Appl. Crystallogr. 24, 946–950. Murzin, A. G., Brenner, S. E., Hubbard, T., and Chothia, C. (1995). SCOP: A structural classification of proteins database for the investigation of sequences and structures. J. Mol. Biol. 24, 536–540. Quintana, J. R., Lipanov, A. A., and Dickerson, R. E. (1991). Low-temperature crystallographic analyses of the binding of Hoechst 33258 to the double-helical DNA dodecamer C-G-C-G-A-A-T-T-C-G-C-G. Biochemistry 30, 10294–10306.

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Richardson, D. C., and Richardson, J. S. (1992). The Kinemage: A tool for scientific communication. Protein Sci. 1, 3–9. Richardson, D. C., and Richardson, J. S. (1994). KinemagesSimple macromolecular graphics for interactive teaching and publication. Trends Biochem. Sci. 19, 135–138. Rose, M. T. (1990). The Open Book, A Practical Perspective on OSI (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall), p. 227–322. Sanchez-Ferrer, A., Nunez-Delicado, E., and Bru, R. (1995). Software for viewing biomolecules in three dimensions on the Internet. Trends Biochem. Sci. 20, 286–288. Sayle, R. A., and Milner-White, E. J. (1995). RASMOL: Biomolecular graphics for all. Trends Biochem. Sci. 20, 374–376. Schuler, G. D., Epstein, J. A., Ohkawa, H., and Kans, J. A. (1996). Entrez: Molecular biology database and retrieval system. Methods Enzymol. 266, 141–162. Walther D. (1997) WebMol—a Java based PDB viewer. Trends Biochem. Sci. 22, 274–275.

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6 GENOMIC MAPPING AND MAPPING DATABASES Peter S. White Department of Pediatrics University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Tara C. Matise Department of Genetics Rutgers University New Brunswick, New Jersey

A few years ago, only a handful of ready-made maps of the human genome existed, and these were low-resolution maps of small areas. Biomedical researchers wishing to localize and clone a disease gene were forced, by and large, to map their region of interest, a time-consuming and painstaking process. This situation has changed dramatically in recent years, and there are now high-quality genome-wide maps of several different types containing tens of thousands of DNA markers. With the pending availability of a finished human sequence, most efforts to construct genomic maps will come to a halt; however, integrated maps, genome catalogues, and comprehensive databases linking positional and functional genomic data will become even more valuable. Genome projects in other organisms are at various stages, ranging from having only a handful of available maps to having a complete sequence. By taking advantage of the available maps and DNA sequence, a researcher can, in many cases, focus in on a candidate region by searching public mapping databases in a matter of hours rather than by performing laboratory experiments over a course of months. 111

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Subsequently, the researcher’s burden has now shifted from mapping the genome to navigating a vast terra incognita of Web sites, FTP servers, and databases. There are large databases such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Entrez Genomes Division, Genome Database (GDB), and Mouse Genome Database (MGD), smaller databases serving the primary maps published by genome centers, sites sponsored by individual chromosome committees, and sites used by smaller laboratories to publish highly detailed maps of specific regions. Each type of resource contains information that is valuable in its own right, even when it overlaps with the information found at others. Finding one’s way around this information space is not easy. A recent search for the word ‘‘genome’’ using the AltaVista Web search engine turned up 400,000 potentially relevant documents. This chapter is intended as a ‘‘map of the maps,’’ a way to guide readers through the maze of publicly available genomic mapping resources. The different types of markers and methods used for genomic mapping will be reviewed and the inherent complexities in the construction and utilization of genome maps will be discussed. Several large community databases and method-specific mapping projects will be presented in detail. Finally, practical examples of how these tools and resources can be used to aid in specific types of mapping studies such as localizing a new gene or refining a region of interest will be provided. A complete description of the mapping resources available for all species would require an entire book. Therefore, this chapter focuses primarily on humans, with some references to resources for other organisms.

INTERPLAY OF MAPPING AND SEQUENCING The recent advent of whole-genome sequencing projects for humans and select model organisms is dramatically impacting the use and utility of genomic map-based information and methodologies. Genomic maps and DNA sequence are often treated as separate entities, but large, uninterrupted DNA sequence tracts can be thought of and used as an ultra-high-resolution mapping technique. Traditional genomic maps that rely on genomic markers and either clone-based or statistical approaches for ordering are precursory to finished and completely annotated DNA sequences of whole chromosomes or genomes. However, such completed genome sequences are predicted to be publicly available only in 2002 for humans, 2005 for the mouse, and even later for other mammalian species, although complete sequences are now available for some individual human chromosomes and selected lower eukaryotes (see Chapter 15). Until these completed sequences are available, mapping and sequencing approaches to genomic analysis serve as complementary approaches for chromosome analysis. Before determination of an entire chromosome’s sequence, the types of sequences available can be roughly grouped into marker/gene-based tags [e.g., expressed sequence tags (ESTs) and sequence-tagged sites (STSs)], single gene sequences, prefinished DNA clone sequences, and completed, continuous genomic sequence tracts. The first two categories provide rich sources of the genomic markers used for mapping, but only the last two categories can reliably order genomic elements. The human genome draft sequence is an example of a prefinished sequence, in which >90% of the entire sequence is available, but most continuous sequence tracts are relatively short (usually 5 alleles) are most useful.

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Polymorphisms may arise from several types of sequence variations. One of the earlier types of polymorphic markers used for genomic mapping is a restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). An RFLP arises from changes in the sequence of a restriction enzyme recognition site, which alters the digestion patterns observed during hybridization-based analysis. Another type of hybridizationbased marker arises from a variable number of tandem repeat units (VNTR). A VNTR locus usually has several alleles, each containing a different number of copies of a common motif of at least 16 nucleotides tandemly oriented along a chromosome. A third type of polymorphism is due to tandem repeats of short sequences that can be detected by PCR-based analysis. These are known variously as microsatellites, short tandem repeats (STRs), STR polymorphisms (STRPs), or short sequence length polymorphisms (SSLPs). These repeat sequences usually consist of two, three, or four nucleotides and are plentiful in most organisms. All PCR-converted STR markers (those for which a pair of oligonucleotides flanking the polymorphic site suitable for PCR amplification of the locus has been designed) are considered to be STSs. The advent of PCR-based analysis quickly made microsatellites the markers of choice for mapping. Another polymorphic type of PCR-based marker is a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), which results from a base variation at a single nucleotide position. Most SNPs have only two alleles (biallelic). Because of their low heterozygosity, maps of SNPs require a much higher marker density than maps of microsatellites. SNPs occur frequently in most genomes, with one SNP occurring on average approximately once in every 100–300 bases in humans. SNPs lend themselves to highly automated fluidic or DNA chip-based analyses and have quickly become the focus of several large-scale development and mapping projects in humans and other organisms. Further details about all of these types of markers can be found elsewhere (Chakravarti and Lynn, 1999; Dietrich et al., 1999).

DNA Clones The possibility of physically mapping eukaryotic genomes was largely realized with the advent of cloning vehicles that could efficiently and reproducibly propagate large DNA fragments. The first generation of large-insert cloning was made possible with yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) libraries (Burke et al., 1987). Because YACs can contain fragments up to 2 Mb, they are suitable for quickly making low-resolution maps of large chromosomal regions, and the first whole-genome physical maps of several eukaryotes were constructed with YACs. However, although YAC libraries work well for ordering STSs and for joining small physical maps, the high rate of chimerism and instability of these clones makes them unsuitable for DNA sequencing. The second and current generation of large-insert clones consists of bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) and P1-artificial chromosomes, both of which act as episomes in bacterial cells rather than as eukaryotic artificial chromosomes. Bacterial propagation has several advantages, including higher DNA yields, ease-of-use for sequencing, and high integrity of the insert during propagation. As such, despite the relatively limited insert sizes (usually 100–300 kb), BACs and PACs have largely replaced YACs as the clones of choice for large-genome mapping and sequencing projects (Iaonnou et al., 1994; Shizuya et al., 1992). DNA fingerprinting has been

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applied to BACs and PACs to determine insert overlaps and to construct clone contigs. In this technique, clones are digested with a restriction enzyme, and the resulting fragment patterns are compared between clones to identify those sharing subsets of identically sized fragments. In addition, the ends of BAC and PAC inserts can be directly sequenced; clones whose insert-end sequences have been determined are referred to as sequence-tagged clones (STCs). Both DNA fingerprinting and STC generation now play instrumental roles in physical mapping strategies, as will be discussed below.

TYPES OF MAPS Cytogenetic Maps Cytogenetic maps are those in which the markers are localized to chromosomes in a manner that can be directly imaged. Traditional cytogenetic mapping hybridizes a radioactively or fluorescently labeled DNA probe to a chromosome preparation, usually in parallel with a chromosomal stain such as Giemsa, which produces a banded karyotype of each chromosome (Pinkel et al., 1986). This allows assignment of the probe to a specific chromosomal band or region. Assignment of cytogenetic positions in this manner is dependent on some subjective criteria (variability in technology, methodology, interpretation, reproducibility, and definition of band boundaries). Thus, inferred cytogenetic positions are often fairly large and occasionally overinterpreted, and some independent verification of cytogenetic position determinations is warranted for crucial genes, markers, or regions. Probes used for cytogenetic mapping are usually large-insert clones containing a gene or polymorphic marker of interest. Despite the subjective aspects of cytogenetic methodology, karyotype analysis is an important and relatively simple clinical genetic tool; thus, cytogenetic positioning remains an important parameter for defining genes, disease loci, and chromosomal rearrangements. Newer cytogenetic techniques such as interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) (Lawrence et al., 1990) and fiber FISH (Parra and Windle, 1993) instead examine chromosomal preparations in which the DNA is either naturally or mechanically extended. Studies of such extended chromatin have demonstrated a directly proportional relationship between the distances measured on the image and the actual physical distance for short stretches, so that a physical distance between two closely linked probes can be determined with some precision (van den Engh et al., 1992). However, these techniques have a limited ordering range (ⱕ1–2 Mb) and are not well-suited for high-throughput mapping.

Genetic Linkage Maps Genetic linkage (GL) maps (also called meiotic maps) rely on the naturally occurring process of recombination for determination of the relative order of, and map distances between, polymorphic markers. Crossover and recombination events take place during meiosis and allow rearrangement of genetic material between homologous chromosomes. The likelihood of recombination between markers is evaluated using genotypes observed in multigenerational families. Markers between which only a few

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recombination occur are said to be linked, and such markers are usually located close to each other on the same chromosome. Markers between which many recombinations take place are unlinked and usually lie far apart, either at opposite ends of the same chromosome or on different chromosomes. Because the recombination events cannot be easily quantified, a statistical method of maximum likelihood is usually applied in which the likelihood of two markers being linked is compared with the likelihood of being unlinked. This likelihood ratio is called a ‘‘lod’’ score (for ‘‘log of the odds’’), and a lod score greater than 3 (corresponding to odds of 1,000:1 or greater) is usually taken as evidence that markers are linked. The lod score is computed at a range of recombination fraction values between markers (from 0 to 0.5), and the recombination fraction at which the lod score is maximized provides an estimate of the distance between markers. A map function (usually either Haldane or Kosambi) is then used to convert the recombination fraction into an additive unit of distance measured in centiMorgans (cM), with 1 cM representing a 1% probability that a recombination has occurred between two markers on a single chromosome. Because recombination events are not randomly distributed, map distances on linkage maps are not directly proportional to physical distances. The majority of linkage maps are constructed using multipoint linkage analysis, although multiple pairwise linkage analysis and minimization of recombination are also valid approaches. Commonly used and publicly available computer programs for building linkage maps include LINKAGE (Lathrop et al., 1984), CRI-MAP (Lander and Green, 1987), MultiMap (Matise et al., 1994), MAPMAKER (Lander et al., 1987), and MAP (Collins et al., 1996). The MAP-O-MAT Web server is available for estimation of map distances and for evaluation of statistical support for order (Matise and Gitlin, 1999). Because linkage mapping is a based on statistical methods, linkage maps are not guaranteed to show the correct order of markers. Therefore, it is important to be critical of the various available maps and to be aware of the statistical criteria that were used in map construction. Typically, only a subset of markers (framework or index markers) is mapped with high statistical support. The remainder are either placed into well-supported intervals or bins or placed into unique map positions but with low statistical support for order (see additional discussion below). To facilitate global coordination of human linkage mapping, DNAs from a set of reference pedigrees collected for map construction were prepared and distributed by the Centre d’Etude du Polymorphism Humain (CEPH; Dausset et al., 1990). Nearly all human linkage maps are based on genotypes from the CEPH reference pedigrees, and genotypes for markers scored in the CEPH pedigrees are deposited in a public database maintained at CEPH. Most recent maps are composed almost entirely of highly polymorphic STR markers. These linkage maps have already exceeded the maximum map resolution possible given the subset of CEPH pedigrees that are commonly used for map construction, and no further large-scale efforts to place STR markers on human linkage maps are planned. Thousands of SNPs are currently being identified and characterized, and a subset are being placed on linkage maps (Wang et al., 1998). Linkage mapping is also an important tool in experimental animals, with many maps already produced at high resolution and others still under development (see Mapping Projects and Associated Resources, below).

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Radiation Hybrid Maps Radiation hybrid (RH) mapping is very similar to linkage mapping. Both methods rely on the identification of chromosome breakage and reassortment. The primary difference is the mechanism of chromosome breakage. In the construction of radiation hybrids, breaks are induced by the application of lethal doses of radiation to a donor cell line, which is then rescued by fusion with a recipient cell line (typically mouse or hamster) and grown in a selective medium such that only fused cells survive. An RH panel is a library of fusion cells, each of which has a separate collection of donor fragments. The complete donor genome is represented multiple times across most RH panels. Each fusion cell, or radiation hybrid, is then scored by PCR to determine the presence or absence of each marker of interest. Markers that physically lie near each other will show similar patterns of retention or loss across a panel of RH cells and behave as if they are linked, whereas markers that physically lie far apart will show completely dissimilar patterns and behave as if they are unlinked. Because the breaks are largely randomly distributed, the break frequencies are roughly directly proportional to physical distances. The resulting data set is a series of positive and negative PCR scores for each marker across the hybrid panel. These data can be used to statistically infer the position of chromosomal breaks, and, from that point on, the procedures for map construction are similar to those used in linkage mapping. A map function is used to convert estimates of breakage frequency to additive units of distance measured in centirays (cR), with 1 cR representing a 1% probability that a chromosomal break has occurred between two markers in a single hybrid. The resolution of a radiation hybrid map depends on the size of the chromosomal fragments contained in the hybrids, which in turn is proportional to the amount of irradiation to which the human cell line was exposed. Most RH maps are built using multipoint linkage analysis, although multiplepairwise linkage analysis and minimization of recombination are also valid approaches. Three genome-wide RH panels exist for humans and are commercially available, and RH panels are available for many other species as well. Widely used computer programs for RH mapping are RHMAP (Boehnke et al., 1991), RHMAPPER (Slonim et al., 1997), and MultiMap (Matise et al., 1994), and on-line servers that allow researchers to place their RH mapped markers on existing RH maps are available. The Radiation Hybrid Database (RHdb) is the central repository for RH data on panels available in all species. The Radiation Hybrid Information Web site also contains multi-species information about available RH panels, maps, ongoing projects, and available computer programs.

Transcript Maps Of particular interest to researchers chasing disease genes are maps of transcribed sequences. Although the transcript sequences are mapped using one of the methods described in this section, and thus do not require a separate mapping technology, they are often set apart as a separate type of map. These maps consist of expressed sequences and sequences derived from known genes that have been converted into STSs and usually placed on conventional physical maps. Recent projects for creating large numbers of ESTs (Adams et al., 1991; Houlgatte et al., 1995; Hillier et al., 1996) have made tens of thousands of unique expressed sequences available to the

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mapping laboratories. Transcribed sequence maps can significantly speed the search for candidate genes once a disease locus has been identified. The largest human transcript map to date is the GeneMap ‘99, described below.

Physical Maps Physical maps include maps that either are capable of directly measuring distances between genomic elements or that use cloned DNA fragments to directly order elements. Many techniques have been created to develop physical maps. The most widely adopted methodology, due largely to its relative simplicity, is STS content mapping (Green and Olson, 1990). This technique can resolve regions much larger than 1 Mb and has the advantage of using convenient PCR-based positional markers. In STS content maps, STS markers are assayed by PCR against a library of large-insert clones. If two or more STSs are found to be contained in the same clone, chances are high that those markers are located close together. (The fact that they are not close 100% of the time is a reflection of various artifacts in the mapping procedure, such as the presence of chimeric clones.) The STS content mapping technique builds a series of contigs (i.e., overlapping clusters of clones joined together by shared STSs). The resolution and coverage of such a map are determined by a number of factors, including the density of STSs, the size of the clones, and the depth of the clone library. Maps that use cloning vectors with smaller insert sizes have a higher theoretical resolution but require more STSs to achieve coverage of the same area of the genome. Although it is generally possible to deduce the relative order of markers on STS content maps, the distances between adjacent markers cannot be measured with accuracy without further experimentation, such as by restriction mapping. However, STS content maps have the advantage of being associated with a clone resource that can be used for further studies, including subcloning, DNA sequencing, or transfection. Several other techniques in addition to STS content and radiation hybrid mapping have also been used to produce physical maps. Clone maps rely on techniques other than STS content to determine the adjacency of clones. For example, the CEPH YAC map (see below) used a combination of fingerprinting, inter-Alu product hybridization, and STS content to create a map of overlapping YAC clones. Fingerprinting is commonly used by sequencing centers to assemble and/or verify BAC and PAC contigs before clones are chosen for sequencing, to select new clones for sequencing that can extend existing contigs, and to help order genomic sequence tracts generated in whole-genome sequencing projects (Chumakov et al., 1995). Sequencing of large-insert clone ends (STC generation), when applied to a wholegenome clone library of adequate coverage, is very effective for whole-genome mapping when used in combination with fingerprinting of the same library. Deletion and somatic cell hybrid maps relying on large genomic reorganizations (induced deliberately or naturally occurring) to place markers into bins defined by chromosomal breakpoints have been generated for some human chromosomes (Jensen et al., 1997; Lewis et al., 1995; Roberts et al., 1996; Vollrath et al., 1992). Optical mapping visualizes and measures the length of single DNA molecules extended and digested with restriction enzymes by high-resolution microscopy. This technique, although still in its infancy, has been successfully used to assemble whole chromosome maps of bacteria and lower eukaryotes and is now being applied to complex genomes (Aston et al., 1999; Jing et al., 1999; Schwartz et al., 1993).

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Comparative Maps Comparative mapping is the process of identifying conserved chromosome segments across different species. Because of the relatively small number of chromosomal breaks that have occurred during mammalian radiation, the order of genes usually is preserved over large chromosomal segments between related species. Orthologous genes (copies of the same genes from different species) can be identified through DNA sequence homology, and sets of orthologous genes sharing an identical linear order within a chromosomal region in two or more species are used to identify conserved segments and ancient chromosomal breakpoints. Knowledge about which chromosomal segments are shared and how they have become rearranged over time greatly increases our understanding of the evolution of different plant and animal lineages. One of the most valuable applications of comparative maps is to use an established gene map of one species to predict positions of orthologous genes in another species. Many animal models exist for diseases observed in humans. In some cases, it is easier to identify the responsible genes in an animal model than in humans, and the availability of a good comparative map can simplify the process of identifying the responsible genes in humans. In other cases, more might be known about the gene(s) responsible in humans, and the same comparative map could be used to help identify the gene(s) responsible in the model species. There are several successful examples of comparative candidate gene mapping (O’Brien et al., 1999). As mapping and sequencing efforts progress in many species, it is becoming possible to identify smaller homologous chromosome segments, and detailed comparative maps are being developed between many different species. Fairly dense gene-based comparative maps now exist between the human, mouse, and rat genomes and also between several agriculturally important mammalian species. Sequence- and protein-based comparative maps are also under development for several lower organisms for which complete sequence is available (Chapter 15). A comparative map is typically presented either graphically or in tabular format, with one species designated as the index species and one or more others as comparison species. Homologous regions are presented graphically with nonconsecutive segments from the comparison species shown aligned with their corresponding segments along the map of the index species.

Integrated Maps Map integration provides interconnectivity between mapping data generated from two or more different experimental techniques. However, achieving accurate and useful integration is a difficult task. Most of the genomic maps and associated Web sites discussed in this section provide some measure of integration, ranging from the approximate cytogenetic coordinates provided in the Geńe´thon GL map to the interassociated GL, RH, and physical data provided by the Whitehead Institute (WICGR) Web site. Several integration projects have created truly integrated maps by placing genomic elements mapped by differing techniques relative to a single map scale. The most advanced sources of genomic information provide some level of genomic cataloguing, where considerable effort is made to collect, organize, and map all available positional information for a given genome.

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COMPLEXITIES AND PITFALLS OF MAPPING It is important to realize that the genomic mapping information currently available is a collection of a large number of individual data sets, each of which has unique characteristics. The experimental techniques, methods of data collection, annotation, presentation, and quality of the data differ considerably among these data sets. Although most mapping projects include procedures to detect and eliminate and/or correct errors, there are invariably some errors that occur, which often result in the incorrect ordering or labeling of individual markers. Although the error rate is usually very low (5% or less), a marker misplacement can obviously have a great impact on a study. A few mapping Web sites are beginning to flag and correct (or at least warn) users of potential errors, but most errors cannot be easily detected. Successful strategies for minimizing the effects of data error include (1) simultaneously assessing as many different maps as possible to maximize redundancy (note that ideally ‘‘different’’ maps use independently-derived data sets or different techniques); (2) increased emphasis on utilizing integrated maps and genomic catalogues that provide access to all available genomic information for the region of interest (while closely monitoring the map resolution and marker placement confidence of the integrated map); and (3) if possible, experimentally verifying the most critical marker positions or placements. In addition to data errors, several other, more subtle complexities are notable. Foremost is the issue of nomenclature, or the naming of genomic markers and elements. Many markers have multiple names, and keeping track of all the names is a major bioinformatics challenge. For example, the polymorphic marker D1S243 has several assigned names: AFM214yg7, which is actually the name of the DNA clone from which this polymorphism was identified; SHGC-428 and stSG729, two examples of genome centers renaming a marker to fit their own nomenclature schemes; and both GDB:201358 and GDB:133491, which are database identifier numbers used to track the polymorphism and STS associated with this marker, respectively, in the Genome Database (GDB). Genomic mapping groups working with a particular marker often assign an additional name to simplify their own data management, but, too often, these alternate identifiers are subsequently used as a primary name. Furthermore, many genomic maps display only one or a few names, making comparisons of maps problematic. Mapping groups and Web sites are beginning to address these inherent problems, but the difficulty of precisely defining ‘‘markers,’’ ‘‘genes,’’ and ‘‘genomic elements’’ adds to the confusion. It is important to distinguish between groups of names defining different elements. A gene can have several names, and it can also be associated with one or more EST clusters, polymorphisms, and STSs. Genes spanning a large genomic stretch can even be represented by several markers that individually map to different positions. Web sites providing genomic cataloguing, such as LocusLink, UniGene, GDB, GeneCards, and eGenome, list most names associated with a given genomic element. Nevertheless, collecting, cross-referencing, and frequently updating one’s own sets of names for markers of interest is also a good practice (see Chapter 4 for data management using Sequin), as even the genomic cataloguing sites do not always provide complete nomenclature collections. Each mapping technique yields its own resolution limits. Cytogenetic banding potentially orders markers separated by ⱖ1–2 Mb, and genetic linkage (GL) and RH analyses yields long-range resolutions of ⱖ0.5–1 Mb, although localized ordering can achieve higher resolutions. The confidence level with which markers are

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ordered on statistically based maps is often overlooked, but this is crucial for assessing map quality. For genomes with abundant mapping data such as human or mouse, the number of markers used for mapping often far exceeds the ability of the technique to order all markers with high confidence (often, confidence levels of 1,000:1 or lod 3 are used as a cutoff, which usually means that a marker is ⱖ1,000: 1 times more likely to be in the given position than in any other). Mappers have taken two approaches to address this issue. The first is to order all markers in the best possible linear order, regardless of the confidence for map position of each marker [examples include GeneMap ’99 (GM99) and the Genetic Location Database; Collins et al., 1996; Deloukas et al., 1998]. Alternatively, the high confidence linear order of a subset of markers is determined, and the remaining markers are then placed in high confidence ‘‘intervals,’’ or regional positions (such as Geńe´thon, SHGC, and eGenome; Dib et al., 1996; Stewart et al., 1997; White et al., 1999). The advantage of the first approach is that resolution is maximized, but it is important to pay attention to the odds for placement of individual markers, as alternative local orders are often almost equally likely. Thus, beyond the effective resolving power of a mapping technique, increased resolution often yields decreased accuracy, and researchers are cautioned to strike a healthy balance between the two. Each mapping technique also yields very different measures of distance. Cytogenetic approaches, with the exception of high-resolution fiber FISH, provide only rough distance estimates, GL and STS content mapping provide marker orientation but only relative distances, and RH mapping yields distances roughly proportional to true physical distance. For GL analysis, unit measurements are in centMiorgans, with 1 cM equivalent to a 1% chance of recombination between two linked markers. The conversion factor of 1 cM ⯝ 1 Mb is often cited for the human genome but is overstated, as this is just the average ratio genome-wide, and many chromosomal regions have recombination hotspots and coldspots in which the cM-to-Mb ratio varies as much as 10-fold. In general, cytogenetic maps provide subband marker regionalization but limited localized ordering, GL and STS content maps provide excellent ordering and limited-to-moderate distance information, and RH maps provide the best combination of localized ordering and distance estimates. Finally, there are various levels at which genomic information can be presented. Single-resource maps such as the Geńe´thon GL maps use a single experimental technique and analyze a homogeneous set of markers. Strictly comparative maps make comparisons between two or more different single-dimension maps either within or between species but without combining data sets for integration. GDB’s Mapview program can display multiple maps in this fashion (Letovsky et al., 1998). Integrated maps recalculate or completely integrate multiple data sets to display the map position of all genomic elements relative to a single scale; GDB’s Comprehensive Maps are an example of such integration (Letovsky et al., 1998). Lastly, genome cataloguing is a relatively new way to display genomic information, in which many data sets and/or Web sites are integrated to provide a comprehensive listing and/or display of all identified genomic elements for a given chromosome or genome. Completely sequenced genomes such as C. elegans and S. cerevisiae have advanced cataloguing efforts (see Chapter 15), but catalogues for complex genome organisms are in the early stages. Examples include the interconnected NCBI databases, MGD, and eGenome (Blake et al., 2000; Wheeler et al., 2000). Catalogues provide a ‘‘onestop shopping’’ solution to collecting and analyzing genomic data and are recommended as a maximum-impact means to begin a regional analysis. However, the

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individual data sets provide the highest quality positional information and are ultimately the most useful for region definition and refinement.

DATA REPOSITORIES There are several valuable and well-developed data repositories that have greatly facilitated the dissemination of genome mapping resources for humans and other species. This section covers three of the most comprehensive resources for mapping in humans: the Genome Database (GDB), the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), and the Mouse Genome Database (MGD). More focused resources are mentioned in the Mapping Projects and Associated Resources section of this chapter.

GDB The Genome Database (GDB) is the official central repository for genomic mapping data created by the Human Genome Project (Pearson, 1991). GDB’s central node is located at the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, Ontario, Canada). Members of the scientific community as well as GDB staff curate data submitted to the GDB. Currently, GDB comprises descriptions of three types of objects from humans: Genomic Segments (genes, clones, amplimers, breakpoints, cytogenetic markers, fragile sites, ESTs, syndromic regions, contigs, and repeats), Maps (including cytogenetic, GL, RH, STS-content, and integrated), and Variations (primarily relating to polymorphisms). In addition, contributing investigator contact information and citations are also provided. The GDB holds a vast quantity of data submitted by hundreds of investigators. Therefore, like other large public databases, the data quality is variable. A more detailed description of the GDB can be found in Talbot and Cuticchia (1994). GDB provides a full-featured query interface to its database with extensive online help. Several focused query interfaces and predefined reports, such as the Maps within a Region search and Lists of Genes by Chromosome report, present a more intuitive entry into GDB. In particular, GDB’s Mapview program provides a graphical interface to the genetic and physical maps available at GDB. A Simple Search is available on the home page of the GDB Web site. This query is used when searching for information on a specific genomic segment, such as a gene or STS (amplimer, in GDB terminology) and can be implemented by entering the segment name or GDB accession number. Depending on the type of segment queried and the available data, many different types of segment-specific information may be returned, such as alternate names (aliases), primer sequences, positions in various maps, related segments, polymorphism details, contributor contact information, citations, and relevant external links. At the bottom of the GDB home page is a link to Other Search Options. From the Other Search Options page there are links to three customized search forms (Markers and Genes within a Region, Maps within a Region, and Genes by Name or Symbol), sequence-based searches, specific search forms for subclasses of GDB elements, and precompiled lists of data (Genetic Diseases by Chromosome, Lists of Genes by Chromosome, and Lists of Genes by Symbol Name). A particularly useful query is the Maps within a Region search. This search allows retrieval of all maps stored in GDB that span a defined chromosomal region.

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In a two-step process, the set of maps to be retrieved is first determined, and, from these, the specific set to be displayed is then selected. Select the Maps within a Region link to display the search form. To view an entire chromosome, simply select it from the pop-up menu. However, entire chromosomes may take considerable time to download and display; therefore, it is usually best to choose a subchromosomal region. To view a chromosomal region, type the names of two cytogenetic bands or flanking genetic markers into the text fields labeled From and To. An example query is shown in Figure 6.1. If the flanking markers used in the query are stored in GDB as more than one type of object, the next form will request selection of the specific type of element for each marker. For the example shown in Figure 6.1, it is appropriate to select Amplimer. The resulting form lists all maps stored in GDB that overlap the selected region. Given the flanking markers specified above, there are a total of 21 maps. The user selects which maps to display by marking the respective checkboxes. Note that GDB’s Comprehensive Map is automatically selected. If a graphical display is requested, the size of the region and the number of maps to be displayed can significantly affect the time to fetch and display them. The resulting display will appear in a separate window showing the selected maps in side-by-side fashion. While the Mapview display is loading, a new page is shown in the browser window. If your system is not configured to handle Java properly, a helpful message will be displayed in the browser window. (Important: Do not close the browser window behind Mapview. Because of an idiosyncrasy of Java’s security specification, the applet cannot interact properly with GDB unless the browser window remains open.) To safely exit the Mapview display, select Exit from Mapview’s File menu. Mapview has many useful options, which are well described in the online help. Some maps have more than one tier, each displaying different types of markers, such as markers positioned with varying confidence thresholds on a linkage or radiation hybrid map. It is possible to zoom in and out, highlight markers across maps, color code different tiers, display markers using different aliases, change the relative position of the displayed maps, and search for specific markers. To retrieve additional information on a marker from any of the maps, double-click on its name to perform a Simple Search (as described above). A separate browser window will then display the GDB entry for the selected marker. Two recently added GDB tools are GDB BLAST and e-PCR. These are available from the Other Search Options page and enable users to employ GDB’s many data resources in their analysis of the emerging human genome sequence. GDB BLAST returns GDB objects associated with BLAST hits against the public human sequence. GDB’s e-PCR finds which of its many amplimers are contained within queried DNA sequences and is thereby a quick means to determine or refine gene or marker localization. In addition, the GDB has many useful genome resource Web links on its Resources page.

NCBI The NCBI has developed many useful resources and tools, several of which are described throughout this book. Of particular relevance to genome mapping is the Genomes Division of Entrez. Entrez provides integrated access to several different types of data for over 600 organisms, including nucleotide sequences, protein structures and sequences, PubMed/MEDLINE, and genomic mapping information. The

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Figure 6.1. Results of a Maps within a Region GDB query for the region D1S468–D1S214, with no limits applied to the types of maps to be retrieved. Twenty-one maps were available for display. Only the Genethon and Marshfield linkage maps, as well as the Chromosome 1 RH map were selected for graphical display. Markers that are shared across maps are connected by lines.

NCBI Human Genome Map Viewer is a new tool that presents a graphical view of the available human genome sequence data as well as cytogenetic, genetic, physical, and radiation hybrid maps. Because the Map Viewer provides displays of the human genome sequence for the finished contigs, the BAC tiling path of finished and draft sequence, and the location of genes, STSs, and SNPs on finished and draft sequences,

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it is an especially useful tool for integrating maps and sequence. The only other organisms for which the Map Viewer is currently available is M. musculus and D. melanogaster. The NCBI Map Viewer can simultaneously display up to seven maps that are selected from a set of 19, including cytogenetic, linkage, RH, physical, and sequencebased maps. Some of the maps have been previously published, and others are being computed at NCBI. An extensive set of help pages is available. There are many different paths to the Map Vieweron the NCBI Web site, as described in the help pages. The Viewer supports genome-wide or chromosome-specific searches. A good starting point is the Homo sapiens Genome View page. This is reached from the NCBI home page by connecting to Human Genome Resources (listed on the right side), followed by the link to the Map Viewer (listed on the left side). From the Genome View page, a genome-wide search may be initiated using the search box at the top left, or a chromosome-specific search may be performed by entering a chromosome number(s) in the top right search box or by clicking on a chromosome idiogram. The searchable terms include gene symbol or name and marker name or alias. The search results include a list of hits for the search term on the available maps. Clicking on any of the resulting items will bring up a graphical view of the region surrounding the item on the specific map that was selected. For example, a genome-wide search for the term CMT* returns 33 hits, representing the loci for forms of Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy on eight different chromosomes. Selecting the Genes seq link for the PMP22 gene (the gene symbol for CMT1A, on chromosome 17) returns the view of the sequence map for the region surrounding this gene. The Display Settings window can then be used to select simultaneous display of additional maps (Fig. 6.2). The second search box at the top right may be used to limit a genome-wide search to a single chromosome or range of chromosomes. Alternatively, to browse an entire chromosome, click on the link below each idiogram. Doing so will return a graphical representation of the chromosome using the default display settings. Currently, the default display settings select the STS map (shows placement of STSs using electronic PCR), the GenBank map (shows the BAC tiling path used for sequencing), and the contig map (shows the contig map assembled at NCBI from finished high-throughput genomic sequence) as additional maps to be displayed. To select a smaller region of interest from the view of the whole chromosome, either define the range (using base pairs, cytogenetic bands, gene symbols or marker names) in the main Map Viewer window or in the display settings or click on a region of interest from the thumbnail view graphic in the sidebar or the map view itself. As with the GDB map views, until all sequence is complete, alignment of multiple maps and inference of position from one map to another must be judged cautiously and should not be overinterpreted (see Complexities and Pitfalls of Mapping section above). There are many other tools and databases at NCBI that are useful for gene mapping projects, including e-PCR, BLAST (Chapter 8), the GeneMap ’99 (see Mapping Projects and Associated Resources), and the LocusLink, OMIM (Chapter 7), dbSTS, dbSNP, dbEST (Chapter 12), and UniGene (Chapter 12) databases. ePCR and BLAST can be used to search DNA sequences for the presence of markers and to confirm and refine map localizations. In addition to EST alignment information and DNA sequence, UniGene reports include cytogenetic and RH map locations. The GeneMap ’99 is a good starting point for finding approximate map

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Figure 6.2. NCBI’s Map View of the region surrounding the PMP22 gene. The Geńe´thon, STS, and Genes seq maps are displayed with lines connecting markers in common.

positions for EST markers, although additional fine-mapping should be performed to confirm order in critical regions. LocusLink, OMIM, and UniGene are good starting points for genome catalog information about genes and gene-based markers. LocusLink (Pruitt et al., 2000) presents information on official nomenclature, aliases, sequence accessions, phenotypes, EC numbers, MIM numbers, UniGene clusters, homology, map locations, and related Web sites. The dbSTS and dbEST databases themselves play a lesser role in human and mouse gene mapping endeavors as their relevant information has already been captured by other more detailed resources

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(such as LocusLink, GeneMap ’99, UniGene, MGD, and eGenome) but are currently the primary source of genomic information for other organisms. The dbSNP database stores population-specific information on variation in humans, primarily for single nucleotide repeats but also for other types of polymorphisms. In addition, the NCBI’s Genomic Biology page provides genomic resource home pages for many other organisms, including mouse, rat, Drosophila, and zebrafish.

MGI/MGD The Mouse Genome Initiative Database (MGI) is the primary public mouse genomic catalogue resource. Located at The Jackson Laboratory, the MGI currently encompasses three cross-linked topic-specific databases: the Mouse Genome Database (MGD), the mouse Gene Expression Database (GXD), and the Mouse Genome Sequence project (MGS). The MGD has evolved from a mapping and genetics resource to include sequence and genome information and details on the functions and roles of genes and alleles (Blake et al., 2000). MGD includes information on mouse genetic markers and nomenclature, molecular segments (probes, primers, YACs and MIT primers), phenotypes, comparative mapping data, graphical displays of linkage, cytogenetic, and physical maps; experimental mapping data, and strain distribution patterns for recombinant inbred strains (RIs) and cross haplotypes. As of November 2000, there were over 29,500 genetic markers and 11,600 genes in MGD, with 85% and 70% of these placed onto the mouse genetic map, respectively. Over 4,800 genes have been matched with their human ortholog and over 1,800 matched with their rat ortholog. Genes are easily searched through the Quick Gene Search box on the MGD home page. Markers and other map elements may also be accessed through several other search forms. The resulting pages contain summary information such as element type, official symbol, name, chromosome, map positions, MGI accession ID, references, and history. Additional element-specific information may also be displayed, including links to outside resources (Fig. 6.3). A thumbnail linkage map of the region is shown to the right, which can be clicked on for an expanded view. The MGD contains many different types of maps and mapping data, including linkage data from 13 different experimental cross panels and the WICGR mouse physical maps, and cytogenetic band positions are available for some markers. The MGD also computes a linkage map that integrates markers mapped on the various panels. A very useful feature is the ability to build customized maps of specific regions using subsets of available data, incorporating private data, and showing homology information where available (see Comparative Resources section below). The MGD is storing radiation hybrid scores for mouse markers, but to date, no RH maps have been deposited at MGD.

MAPPING PROJECTS AND ASSOCIATED RESOURCES In addition to the large-scale mapping data repositories outlined in the previous section, many invaluable and more focused resources also exist. Some of these are either not appropriate for storage at one of the larger-scale repositories or have never been deposited in them. These are often linked to specific mapping projects that primarily use only one or a few different types of markers or mapping approaches.

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Figure 6.3. Results of an MGD Quick Gene Search for pmp22.

For most studies requiring the use of genome maps, it remains necessary to obtain maps or raw data from one or more of these additional resources. By visiting the resource-specific sites outlined in this section, it is usually possible to view maps in the form preferred by the originating laboratory, download the raw data, and review the laboratory protocols used for map construction.

Cytogenetic Resources Cytogenetic-based methodologies are instrumental in defining inherited and acquired chromosome abnormalities, and (especially gene-based) chromosomal mapping data is often expressed in cytogenetic terms. However, because cytogenetic markers are


not sequence based and the technique is less straightforward and usually more subjective than GL, RH, or physical mapping, there is only a modicum of integration between chromosomal band assignments and map coordinates derived from other techniques in humans and very little or none in other species. Thus, it is often difficult to determine the precise cytogenetic location of a gene or region. Useful human resources can be divided into displays of primary cytogenetic mapping data, efficient methods of integrating cytogenetic and other mapping data, and resources pertaining to specific chromosomal aberrations. The central repository for human cytogenetic information is GDB, which offers several ways to query for marker and map information using cytogenetic coordinates (see above). GDB is a useful resource for cross-referencing cytogenetic positions with genes or regions of interest. NCBI’s LocusLink and UniGene catalogues, as well as their other integrated mapping resources, are also valuable repositories of cytogenetic positions. LocusLink and NCBI’s Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) list cytogenetic positions for all characterized genes and genetic abnormalities, respectively (McKusick, 1998; Pruitt et al., 2000). The National Cancer Institute (NCI)-sponsored project to identify GL-tagged BAC clones at 1 Mb density throughout the genome is nearing completion. This important resource, which is commercially available both as clone sets and as individual clones, provides the first complete integration of cytogenetic band information with other genome maps. At this site, BACs can be searched for individually by clone name, band position, or contained STS name, and chromosome sets are also listed. Each clone contains one or more microsatellite markers and has GL and/or RH mapping coordinates along with a FISH-determined cytogenetic band assignment. This information can be used to quickly determine the cytogenetic position of a gene or localized region and to map a cytogenetic observation such as a tumor-specific chromosomal rearrangement using the referenced GL and physical mapping reagents. Three earlier genome-wide efforts to cytogenetically map large numbers of probes are complementary to the NCI site. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory-University of California, San Francisco, Resource for Molecular Cytogenetics has mapped large-insert clones containing polymorphic and expressed markers using FISH to specific bands and also with fractional length (flpter) coordinates, in which the position of a marker is measured as a percentage of the length of the chromosome’s karyotype. Similarly, the Genetics Institute at the University of Bari, Italy, and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics have independently localized large numbers of clones, mostly YACs containing GL-mapped microsatellite markers, onto chromosome bands by FISH. All three resources have also integrated the mapped probes relative to existing GL and/or RH maps. Many data repositories and groups creating integrated genome maps list cytogenetic localizations for mapped genomic elements. These include GDB, NCBI, the Unified Database (UDB), the Genetic Location Database (LDB), and eGenome, all of which infer approximate band assignments to many or all markers in their databases. These assignments rely on determination of the approximate boundaries of each band using subsets of their marker sets for which accurate cytogenetic mapping data are available. The NCI’s Cancer Chromosome Aberration Project (CCAP; Wheeler et al., 2000), Infobiogen (Wheeler et al., 2000), the Southeastern Regional Genetics Group (SERGG), and the Coriell Cell Repositories all have Web sites that display cytogenetic maps or descriptions of characterized chromosomal rearrangements. These sites

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are useful resources for determining whether a specific genomic region is frequently disrupted in a particular disease or malignancy and for finding chromosomal cell lines and reagents for regional mapping. However, most of these rearrangements have only been mapped at the cytogenetic level. Nonhuman resources are primarily limited to displays or simple integrations of chromosome idiograms. ArkDB is an advanced resource for displaying chromosomes of many amniotes; MGD incorporates mouse chromosome band assignments into queries of its database; and the Animal Genome Database has clickable chromosome idiograms for several mammalian genomes (Wada and Yasue, 1996). A recent work linking the mouse genetic and cytogenetic maps consists of 157 BAC clones distributed genome-wide (Korenberg et al., 1999) and an associated Web site is available for this resource at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Genetic Linkage Map Resources Even with the ‘‘sequence era’’ approaching rapidly, linkage maps remain one of the most valuable and widely used genome mapping resources. Linkage maps are the starting point for many disease-gene mapping projects and have served as the backbone of many physical mapping efforts. Nearly all human linkage maps are based on genotypes from the standard CEPH reference pedigrees. There are three recent sets of genome-wide GL maps currently in use, all of which provide high-resolution, largely accurate, and convenient mapping information. These maps contain primarily the conveniently genotyped PCR-based microsatellite markers, use genotypes for only 8–15 of the 65 available CEPH pedigrees, and contain few, if any, gene-based or cytogenetically mapped markers. Many chromosome-specific linkage maps have also been constructed, many of which use a larger set of CEPH pedigrees and include hybridization- and gene-based markers. Over 11,000 markers have been genotyped in the CEPH pedigrees, and these genotypes have been deposited into the CEPH genotype database and are publicly available. The first of the three genome-wide maps was produced by the Cooperative Human Linkage Center (CHLC; Murray et al., 1994). Last updated in 1997, the CHLC has identified, genotyped, and/or mapped over 3,300 microsatellite repeat markers. The CHLC Web site currently holds many linkage maps, including maps comprised solely of CHLC-derived markers and maps combining CHLC markers with those from other sources, including most markers in CEPHdb. CHLC markers can be recognized by unique identifiers that contain the nucleotide code for the tri- or tetranucleotide repeat units. For example, CHLC.GATA49A06 (D1S1608) contains a repeat unit of GATA, whereas CHLC.ATA28C07 (D1S1630) contains an ATA repeat. There are over 10,000 markers on the various linkage maps at CHLC, and most CHLC markers were genotyped in 15 CEPH pedigrees. The highest resolution CHLC maps have an average map distance of 1–2 cM between markers. Some of the maps contain markers in well-supported unique positions along with other markers placed into intervals. Another set of genome-wide linkage maps was produced in 1996 by the group at Geńe´thon (Dib et al., 1996). This group has identified and genotyped over 7,800 dinucleotide repeat markers and has produced maps containing only Geńe´thon markers. These markers also have unique identifiers; each marker name has the symbols ‘‘AFM’’ at the beginning of the name. The Geńe´thon map contains 5,264 genotyped in 8–20 CEPH pedigrees. These markers have been placed into 2,032 well-supported


map positions, with an average map resolution of 2.2 cM. Because of homogeneity of their marker and linkage data and the RH and YAC-based mapping efforts at Geńe´thon that incorporate many of their polymorphic markers, the Geńe´thon map has become the most widely utilized human linkage map. The third and most recent set of human maps was produced at the Center for Medical Genetics at the Marshfield Medical Research Foundation (Broman et al., 1998). This group has identified over 300 dinucleotide repeats and has constructed high-density maps using over 8,000 markers. Like the CHLC maps, the Marshfield maps include their own markers as well as others, such as markers from CHLC and Geńe´thon. These maps have an average resolution of 2.3 cM per map interval. Markers developed at the Marshfield Foundation have an MFD identifier at the beginning of their names. The authors caution on their Web site that because only eight of the CEPH families were used for the map construction, the orders of some of the markers are not well determined. The Marshfield Web site provides a useful utility for displaying custom maps that contain user-specified subsets of markers. Two additional linkage maps have been developed exclusively for use in performing efficient large-scale and/or genome-wide genotyping. The ABI PRISM linkage mapping sets are composed of dinucleotide repeat markers derived from the Geńe´thon linkage map. The ABI marker sets are available at three different map resolutions (20, 10, and 5 cM), containing 811, 400, and 218 markers, respectively. The Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR), a joint program sponsored by The Johns Hopkins University and the National Institutes of Health, provides a genotyping service that uses 392 highly polymorphic tri- and tetranucleotide repeat markers spaced at an average resolution of 9 cM. The CIDR map is derived from the Weber v.9 marker set, with improved reverse primers and some additional markers added to fill gaps. Although each of these maps is extremely valuable, it can be very difficult to determine marker order and intermarker distance between markers that are not all represented on the same linkage map. The MAP-O-MAT Web site at Rutgers University is a marker-based linkage map server that provides several map-specific queries. The server uses genotypes for over 12,000 markers (obtained from the CEPH database and from the Marshfield Foundation) and the CRI-MAP computer program to estimate map distances, perform two-point analyses, and assess statistical support for order for user-specified maps (Matise and Gitlin, 1999). Thus, rather than attempting to integrate markers from multiple maps by rough interpolation, likelihood analyses can be easily performed on any subset of markers from the CEPH database. High-resolution linkage maps have also been constructed for many other species. These maps are often the most well-developed resource for animal species’ whose genome projects are in early stages. The mouse and rat both have multiple genomewide linkage maps (see MGD and the Rat Genome Database); other species with well-developed linkage maps include zebrafish, cat, dog, cow, pig, horse, sheep, goat, and chicken (O’Brien et al., 1999).

Radiation Hybrid Map Resources Radiation hybrid maps provide an intermediate level of resolution between linkage and physical maps. Therefore, they are helpful for sequence alignment and will aid in completion of the human genome sequencing project. Three human whole-genome panels have been prepared with different levels of X-irradiation and are available for

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purchase from Research Genetics. Three high-resolution genome-wide maps have been constructed using these panels, each primarily utilizing EST markers. Mapping servers for each of the three human RH panels are available on-line to allow users to place their own markers on these maps. RH score data are deposited to, and publicly available from, The Radiation Hybrid Database (RHdb). Although this section covers RH mapping in humans, many RH mapping efforts are also underway in other species. More information regarding RH resources in all species are available at The Radiation Hybrid Mapping Information Web site. In general, lower-resolution panels are most useful for more widely spaced markers over longer chromosomal regions, whereas higher-resolution panels are best for localizing very densely spaced markers over small regions. The lowest-resolution human RH panel is the Genebridge4 (GB4) panel (Gyapay et al., 1996). This panel contains 93 hybrids that were exposed to 3000 rads of irradiation. The maximum map resolution attainable by GB4 is 800–1,200 kb. An intermediate level panel was produced at the Stanford Human Genome Center (Stewart et al., 1997). The Stanford Generation 3 (G3) panel contains 83 hybrids exposed to 10,000 rads of irradiation. This panel can localize markers as close as 300–600 kb apart. The highest resolution panel (‘‘The Next Generation,’’ or TNG) was also developed at Stanford (Beasley et al., 1997). The TNG panel has 90 hybrids exposed to 50,000 rads of irradiation and can localize markers as close as 50–100 kb. The Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research constructed a map with approximately 6,000 markers using the GB4 panel (Hudson et al., 1995). Framework markers on this map were localized with odds ⱖ300:1, yielding a resolution of approximately 2.3 Mb between framework markers. Additional markers are localized to broader map intervals. A mapping server is provided for placing markers (scored in the GB4 panel) relative to the MIT maps. The Stanford group has constructed a genome-wide map using the G3 RH panel (Stewart et al., 1997). This map contains 10,478 markers with an average resolution of 500 kb. Markers localized with odds = 1,000:1 are used to define ‘‘high-confidence bins,’’ and additional markers are placed into these bins with lower odds. A mapping server is provided for placing markers scored in the G3 panel onto the SHGC G3 maps. A fourth RH map has been constructed using both the G3 and GB4 panels. This combined map, the Transcript Map of the Human Genome (GeneMap ’99; Fig. 6.4), was produced by the RH Consortium, an international collaboration between several groups (Deloukas et al., 1998). This map contains over 30,000 ESTs localized against a common framework of approximately 1,100 polymorphic Geńe´thon markers. The markers were localized to the framework using the GB4 RH panel, the G3 panel, or both. The map includes the majority of human genes with known function. Most markers on the map represent transcribed sequences with unknown function. The order of the framework markers is well supported, but most ESTs are mapped relative to the framework with odds gi|7661723|ref|NM_015372.1), 1247 bp seq2 = genomic (>gi|1941922|emb|Z82248.1|HSN44A4), 40662 bp (complement) 1-118 (15628-15745) 100% -> 119-318 (22863-23062) 100% -> 319-1247 (26529-27457) 100% 0 . : . : . : . : . : 1 CCCCAGGCGTGGGAAGATGGAACCAGAACAATTCGAACGAGCAGAGCAAA |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 15628 CCCCAGGCGTGGGAAGATGGAACCAGAACAATTCGAACGAGCAGAGCAAA 50 . : . : . : . : . : 51 ACAGATCGGAATTGCAGACTTCAGGTCGTGGCAGAGAAAACCAGCTGAGA |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 15678 ACAGATCGGAATTGCAGACTTCAGGTCGTGGCAGAGAAAACCAGCTGAGA 100 . : . : . : . : . : 101 CAGGGCGCCACTTACTAG CTCTGAAAGTCTAGGATATTTTG ||||||||||||||||||>>>...>>>||||||||||||||||||||||| 15728 CAGGGCGCCACTTACTAGGTG...CAGCTCTGAAAGTCTAGGATATTTTG 150 . : . : . : . : . : 142 CCACTGGAAGACCAGCAGACAATGTCATGACAACTCAAGAGGATACAACA |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 22886 CCACTGGAAGACCAGCAGACAATGTCATGACAACTCAAGAGGATACAACA 200 . : . : . : . : . : 192 GGGCTGCATCAAAAGACAAGTCTTTGGACCATGTCAAGACCTGGAGCGAA |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 22936 GGGCTGCATCAAAAGACAAGTCTTTGGACCATGTCAAGACCTGGAGCGAA 250 . : . : . : . : . : 242 GAAGGTAATGAACTCCTACTTCATAGCAGGCTGTGGGCCAGCAGTTTGCT |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 22986 GAAGGTAATGAACTCCTACTTCATAGCAGGCTGTGGGCCAGCAGTTTGCT 300 . : . : . : . : . : 292 ACTACGCTGTCTCTTGGTTAAGGCAAG GTTTCAGTATCAAC |||||||||||||||||||||||||||>>>...>>>|||||||||||||| 23036 ACTACGCTGTCTCTTGGTTAAGGCAAGGTC...CAGGTTTCAGTATCAAC 350 . : . : . : . : . : 333 CTGACTTCTTTTGGAAGGATCCCTTGGCCTCACGCTGGAGTGGGCACCTG |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 26543 CTGACTTCTTTTGGAAGGATCCCTTGGCCTCACGCTGGAGTGGGCACCTG 400 . : . : . : . : . : 383 CCCTAGCCCACAGAGCTGGATTTCTCCCTTTCTTCAATCACACAGGGAGC |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 26593 CCCTAGCCCACAGAGCTGGATTTCTCCCTTTCTTCAATCACACAGGGAGC ouput truncated for brevity Figure 8.14. Spliced alignment. The sim4 program was used to align a novel human mRNA (RefSeq NM 015372) to the genomic sequence of a cosmid from chromosome 22 (EMBL Z82248). Three exons were identified on the complementary strand (the third one has been truncated for brevity). The ‘‘>>>’’ symbols indicate splice sites found at the exon/intron boundaries.

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lecular biologists should be familiar with. It can be expected that these methods will continue to evolve to meet the challenges of an ever-increasing database size. This chapter has described some of the fundamental concepts involved, but it is useful to consult the documentation of the various programs for more detailed information. Researchers should have a basic understanding of how the programs work so that parameters can be intelligently selected. In addition, they should be aware of potential artifacts and know how to avoid them. Above all, it is important to apply the same powers of observation and critical evaluation that are used with any experimental method.

INTERNET RESOURCES FOR TOPICS PRESENTED IN CHAPTER 8 BLAST CLUSTAL W dotter FASTA, lalign hmmer RepeatMasker seg sim4 Wise package

http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/ ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/software/ ftp://ftp.sanger.ac.uk/pub/dotter/ ftp://ftp.virginia.edu/pub/fasta/ http://hmmer.wustl.edu/ http://ftp.genome.washington.edu/RM/RepeatMasker.html ftp://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/seg/ http://globin.cse.psu.edu http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Software/Wise2/

PROBLEM SET 1. What is the difference between a global and a local alignment strategy? 2. Calculate the score of the DNA sequence alignment shown below using the following scoring rules: + 1 for a match, – 2 for a mismatch, – 3 for opening a gap, and – 1 for each position in the gap. GACTACGATCCGTATACGCACA––GGTTCAGAC |||||||| ||||||||||||| ||||||||| GACTACGAGCCGTATACGCACACAGGTTCAGAC 3. If a match from a database search is reported to have a E-value of 0.0, should it be considered highly insignificant or highly significant?

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Altschul, S. F., and Erickson, B. W. (1985). Significance of nucleotide sequence alignments: A method for random sequence permutation that preserves dinucleotide and codon usage. Mol. Biol. Evol. 2, 526–538. Altschul, S. F., and Gish, W. (1996). Local alignment statistics. Methods Enzymol. 266, 460– 480. Altschul, S. F., Gish, W., Miller, W., Myers, E. W., and Lipman, D. J. (1990). Basic local alignment search tool. J. Mol. Biol. 215, 403–410. Baron, M., Norman, D. G., and Campbell, I. D. (1991). Protein modules. Trends Biochem. Sci. 16, 13–17. Bateman, A., Birney, E., Durbin, R., Eddy, S. R., Howe, K. L., and Sonnhammer, E. L. (2000). The Pfam protein families database. Nucleic Acids Res. 28, 263–266. Birney, E., Thompson, J. D., and Gibson, T. J. (1996). PairWise and SearchWise: finding the optimal alignment in a simultaneous comparison of a protein profile against all DNA translation frames. Nucleic Acids Res. 24, 2730–2739. Bucher, P., Karplus, K., Moeri, N., and Hofmann, K. (1996). A flexible motif search technique based on generalized profiles. Comput. Chem. 20, 3–23. Dayhoff, M. O., Schwartz, R. M., and Orcutt, B. C. (1978). A model of evolutionary change in proteins. In Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure, M. O. Dayhoff, ed. (Washington: National Biomedical Research Foundation), p. 345–352. Dembo, A., Karlin, S., and Zeitouni, O. (1984). Limit distribution of maximal non-aligned two-sequence segmental score. Ann. Prob. 22, 2022–2039. Doolittle, R. F., Hunkapiller, M. W., Hood, L. E., Devare, S. G., Robbins, K. C., Aaronson, S. A., and Antoniades, H. N. (1983). Simian sarcoma virus onc gene, v-sis, is derived from the gene (or genes) encoding a platelet-derived growth factor. Science 221, 275–277. Doolittle, R. J., and Bork, P. (1993). Evolutionarily mobile modules in proteins. Sci. Am. 269, 50–56. Eddy, S. R., Mitchison, G., and Durbin, R. (1995). Maximum discrimination hidden Markov models of sequence consensus. J. Comput. Biol. 2, 9–23. Fitch, W. M. (1969). Locating gaps in amino acid sequences to optimize the homology between two proteins. Biochem. Genet. 3, 99–108. Fitch, W. M. (1983). Random sequences. J. Mol. Biol. 163, 171–176. Florea, L., Hartzell, G., Zhang, Z., Rubin, G. M., and Miller, W. (1998). A computer program for aligning a cDNA sequence with a genomic DNA sequence. Genome Res. 8, 967–974. Gibbs, A. J., and McIntyre, G. A. (1970). The diagram: a method for comparing sequences. Its use with amino acid and nucleotide sequences. Eur. J. Biochem. 16, 1–11. Gonzalez, P., Hernandez-Calzadilla, C., Rao, P. V., Rodriguez, I. R., Zigler, J. S., Jr., and Borras, T. (1994). Comparative analysis of the zeta-crystallin/quinone reductase gene in guinea pig and mouse. Mol. Biol. Evol. 11, 305–315. Gribskov, M., McLachlan, A. D., and Eisenberg, D. (1987). Profile analysis: detection of distantly related proteins. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 84, 4355–4358. Henikoff, S., and Henikoff, J. G. (1992). Amino acid substitution matrices from protein blocks. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 89, 10915–10919. Henikoff, S., and Henikoff, J. G. (1991). Automated assembly of protein blocks for database searching. Nucleic Acids Res. 19, 6565–6572. Higgins, D. G., Thompson, J. D., and Gibson, T. J. (1996). Using CLUSTAL for multiple sequence alignments. Methods Enzymol. 266, 383–402. Holm, L., and Sander, C. (1997). Enzyme HIT. Trends Biochem. Sci. 22, 16–117. Huang, X., Hardison, R. C., and Miller, W. (1990). A space-efficient algorithm for local similarities. Comput. Applic. Biosci. 6, 373–381.

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Karlin, S., and Altschul, S. F. (1990). Methods for assessing the statistical significance of molecular sequence features by using general scoring schemes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 87, 2264–2268. Lipman, D. J., and Pearson, W. R. (1985). Rapid and sensitive protein similarity searches. Science 227, 1435–1441. Mott, R. (1997). EST GENOME: a program to align spliced DNA sequences to unspliced genomic DNA. Comput. Appl. Biosci. 13, 477–478. Needleman, S. B., and Wunsch, C. (1970). A general method applicable to the search for similarities in the amino acid sequence of two proteins. J. Mol. Biol. 48, 443–453. Patthy, L. (1991). Modular exchange principles in proteins. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 1, 351– 361. Pearson, W. (2000). Flexible sequence similarity searching with the FASTA3 program package. Methods Mol. Biol. 132, 185–219. Pearson, W. R. (1996). Effective protein sequence comparison. Methods Enzymol. 266, 227– 258. Pearson, W. R., and Lipman, D. J. (1988). Improved tools for biological sequence comparison. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 85, 2444–2448. Schneider, T. D., Stormo, G. D., Gold, L., and Ehrenfeucht, A. (1986). Information content of binding sites on nucleotide sequences. J. Mol. Biol. 188, 415–31. Sellers, P. H. (1984). Pattern recognition in genetic sequences by mismatch density. Bull. Math. Biol. 46, 510–514. Smith, T. F., and Waterman, M. S. (1981). Identification of common molecular subsequences. J. Mol. Biol. 147, 195–197. Sonnhammer, E. L. L., and Durban, R. (1996). A dot-matrix program with dynamic threshold control suited for genomic DNA and protein sequence analysis. Gene 167, GC1–GC10. Staden, R. (1988). Methods to define and locate patterns of motifs in sequences. Comput. Appl. Biosci. 4, 53–60. Tatusov, R. L., Altschul, S. F., and Koonin, E. V. (1994). Detection of conserved segments in proteins: iterative scanning of sequence databases with alignment blocks. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91, 12091–12095. Waterfield, M. D., Scrace, G. T., Whittle, N., Stroobant, P., Johnsson, A., Wasteson, A., Westermark, B., Heldin, C. H., Huang, J. S., and Deuel, T. F. (1983). Platelet-derived growth factor is structurally related to the putative transforming protein p28sis of simian sarcoma virus. Nature 304, 35–39. Waterman, M. S., and Eggert, M. (1987). A new algorithm for best subsequence alignments with applications to tRNA-rRNA comparisons. J. Mol. Biol. 197, 723–728. Waterman, M. S., and Vingron, M. (1994). Rapid and accurate estimates of statistical significance for sequence data base searches. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91, 4625–4628. Wilbur, W. J., and Lipman, D. J. (1983). Rapid similarity searches of nucleic acid and protein data banks. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 80, 726–730. Wootton, J. C. (1994). Non-globular domains in protein sequences: automated segmentation using complexity measures. Comput. Chem. 18, 269–285. Wootton, J. C., and Federhen, S. (1996). Analysis of compositionally biased regions in sequence databases. Methods Enzymol. 266, 554–571. Wootton, J. C., and Federhen, S. (1993). Statistics of local complexity in amino acid sequences and sequence databases. Comput. Chem. 17, 149–163.

9 CREATION AND ANALYSIS OF PROTEIN MULTIPLE SEQUENCE ALIGNMENTS Geoffrey J. Barton European Molecular Biology Laboratory European Bioinformatics Institute Wellcome Trust Genome Campus Hinxton, Cambridge UK

INTRODUCTION When a protein sequence is newly-determined, an important goal is to assign possible functions to the protein. The first computational step is to search for similarities with sequences that have previously been deposited in the DNA and protein sequence databases. If similar sequences are found, they may match the complete length of the new sequence or only to subregions of the sequence. If more than one similar sequence is found, then the next important step in the analysis is to multiply align all of the sequences. Multiple alignments are a key starting point for the prediction of protein secondary structure, residue accessibility, function, and the identification of residues important for specificity. Multiple alignments also provide the basis for the most sensitive sequence searching algorithms (cf. Gribskov et al., 1987; Barton and Sternberg, 1990; Attwood et al., 2000). Effective analysis of a well-constructed multiple alignment can provide important clues about which residues in the protein are important for function and which are important for stabilizing the secondary and tertiary structures of the protein. In addition, it is often also possible to make predictions about which residues confer specificity of function to subsets of the 215

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sequences. In this chapter, some guidelines are provided toward the generation and analysis of protein multiple sequence alignments. This is not a comprehensive review of techniques; rather, it is a guide based on the software that have proven to be most useful in building alignments and using them to predict protein structure and function. A full summary of the software is available at the end of the chapter.

WHAT IS A MULTIPLE ALIGNMENT, AND WHY DO IT? A protein sequence is represented by a string a of letters coding for the 20 different types of amino acid residues. A protein sequence alignment is created when the residues in one sequence are lined up with those in at least one other sequence. Optimal alignment of the two sequences will usually require the insertion of gaps in one or both sequences in order to find the best alignment. Alignment of two residues implies that those residues are performing similar roles in the two different proteins. This allows for information known about specific residues in one sequence to be potentially transferred to the residues aligned in the other. For example, if the active site residues of an enzyme have been characterized, alignment of these residues with similar residues in another sequence may suggest that the second sequence possesses similar catalytic activity to the first. The validity of such hypotheses depends on the overall similarity of the sequences, which in turn dictate the confidence with which an alignment can be generated. There are typically many millions of different possible alignments for any two sequences. The task is to find an alignment that is most likely to represent the chemical and biological similarities between the two proteins. A multiple sequence alignment is simply an alignment that contains more than two sequences! Even if one is interested in the similarities between only two of the sequences in a set, it is always worth multiply-aligning all available sequences. The inclusion of these additional sequences in the multiple alignment will normally improve the accuracy of the alignment between the sequence pairs, as illustrated in Figure 9.1, as well as revealing patterns of conserved residues that would not have been obvious when only two sequences are directly studied. Although many programs exist that can generate a multiple alignment from unaligned sequences, extreme care must be taken when interpreting the results. An alignment may show perfect matching of a known active-site residue with an identical residue in a wellcharacterized protein family, but, if the alignment is incorrect, any inference about function will also be incorrect.

STRUCTURAL ALIGNMENT OR EVOLUTIONARY ALIGNMENT? It is the precise arrangement of the amino acid side chains in the three-dimensional structure of the protein that dictates its function. Comparison of two or more protein three-dimensional structures will highlight which residues are in similar positions in space and hence likely to be performing similar functional roles. Such comparisons can be used to generate a sequence alignment from structure (e.g., see Russell and Barton, 1992). The structural alignment of two or more proteins is the gold standard against which sequence alignment algorithms are normally judged. This is because it is the structural alignment that most reliably aligns residues that are of functional importance. Unfortunately, structural alignments are only possible when the three-

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Figure 9.1. Histogram showing difference in accuracy between the same pairs of sequences aligned as a pair and as part of a larger multiple sequence alignment. On average, multiple alignments improve the overall alignment accuracy, which, in this example, is judged as the alignment obtained by comparison of the three-dimensional structures of the individual proteins rather than just their sequences (Russell and Barton, 1992).

dimensional structures of all the proteins to be aligned are known. This is not usually the case; therefore, the challenge for sequence alignment methods is to get as close as possible to the structural alignment without knowledge of structure. Although the structural alignment is the most important alignment for the prediction of function, it does not necessarily correspond to the evolutionary alignment implied by divergence from a common ancestor protein. Unfortunately, it is rarely possible to determine the evolutionary alignment of two divergent proteins with confidence because this would require knowledge of the precise history of substitutions, insertions, and deletions that have led to the creation of present-day proteins from their common ancestor.

HOW TO MULTIPLY ALIGN SEQUENCES Automatic alignment programs such as CLUSTAL W (Thompson et al., 1994) will give good quality alignments for sequences that are more than 6␴ similar (Barton

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and Sternberg, 1987). However, building good multiple alignments for sequences that are not trivially similar is a precise task even with the best available alignment tools. This section gives an overview of some of the steps to go through to make alignments that are good for structure/function predictions. This is not a universal recipe; in fact, there are very few universal recipes in bioinformatics in general. Each set of sequences presents its own biologically based problems, and only experience can guide the creation of high-quality alignments. Some collections of expertly created multiple alignments exist (described later), and these should always be consulted when studying sequences that are present there. The key steps in building a multiple alignment are as follows. • Find the sequences to align by database searching or by other means. • Locate the region(s) of each sequence to include in the alignment. Do not try to multiply align sequences that are substantially different in length. Most multiple alignment programs are designed to align sequences that are similar over their entire length; therefore, a necessary first step is to edit the sequences down to those regions that sequence database searches suggest are similar. • Ideally, assess the similarities within the set of sequences by comparing them pairwise with randomizations. Select a subset of the sequences to align first that cluster above 6␴. Automatic alignment of such sequences are likely to be accurate (Barton and Sternberg, 1987). An alternative to doing randomization is to align only sequences that are similar to the query in a database search, say with an E-value of 6, then it is highly likely that the two sequences are alignable, and the alignment correctly relates the key functional and structural residues in the individual proteins to one another (Barton and Sternberg, 1987). Unfortunately, this can only be a rough guide. An alignment that gives a Z < 6 may be poor, and some alignments with low Z-scores are actually correct. This is simply a reflection of the fact that, during evolution, sequence similarity has diverged faster than structural or functional similarity. Z-scores are preferable to simple percent identities as a measure of similarity because it corrects for both compositional bias in the sequences as well as accounting for the varying lengths of sequences. The Z-score, therefore, gives an indication of the overall similarity between two sequences. Although it is a powerful measure, it does not help to locate parts of the sequence alignment that are incorrect. As a general rule, if the alignment is between two or more sequences that do indeed share a similar threedimensional structure, then the majority of errors will be concentrated around regions where there are gaps (insertions/deletions).

Hierarchical Methods The most accurate, practical methods for automatic multiple alignment are hierarchical methods. These work by first finding a guide tree and then following the guide tree to build the alignment. The process is summarized in Figure 9.2. First, all pairs of sequences in the set to be aligned are compared by a pairwise method of sequence comparison. This provides a set of pairwise similarity scores for the sequences that can be fed into a cluster analysis or tree calculating program. The tree is calculated to place more similar pairs of sequences closer together on the tree than sequences that are less similar. The multiple alignment is then built by starting with the pair of sequences that is most similar and aligning them and then aligning the next most similar pair, and so on. Pairs to be aligned need not be single sequences but can be alignments that have been generated earlier in the tree. If an alignment is compared with a sequence or another alignment, then gaps that exist in the alignment are preserved. There are many different variations of this basic multiple alignment technique. Because errors in alignment that occur early in the process can get locked in and propagated, some methods allow for realignment of the sequences after the initial alignment (e.g., Barton and Sternberg, 1987; Gotoh, 1996). Other refinements include using different similarity scoring matrices at different stages in building up the alignment (e.g., Thompson et al., 1994). Gaps (insertions/deletions) do not occur randomly in protein sequences. Since a stable, properly-folded protein must be maintained, proteins with an insertion or deletion in the middle of a secondary structure (␣-helix or ␤-strand) are usually selected against during the course of evolution. As a consequence, presentday proteins show a strong bias toward localizing insertions and deletions to loop regions that link the core secondary structures. This observation can be used to improve the accuracy of multiple sequence alignments when the secondary structure is known for one or more of the proteins in practice by making the penalty for inserting a gap higher when in secondary structure regions than when in loops (Barton and Sternberg, 1987; Jones, 1999. A further refinement is to bias where gaps are most likely to be inserted in the alignment by examining the growing alignment for regions that are most likely to accommodate gaps (Pascarella and Argos, 1992).

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Figure 9.2. Illustration of the stages in hierarchical multiple alignment of seven sequences. The codes for these sequences are HAHU, HBHU, HAHO, HBHO, MYWHP, P1LHB, and LGHB. The table at the top left shows the pairwise Z-scores for comparison of each sequence pair. Higher numbers mean greater similarity (see text). Hierarchical cluster analysis of the Z-score table generates the dendrogram or tree shown at the bottom left. Items joined toward the right of the tree are more similar than those linked toward the left. Based on the tree, LGHB is least similar to the other sequences in the set, whereas HBHU and HBHO are the most similar pair (most similar to each other). The first four steps in building the multiple alignment are shown on the right. The first two steps are pairwise alignments. The third step is a comparison of profiles from the two alignments generated in steps 1 and 2. The fourth step adds a single sequence (MYWHP) to the alignment generated at step 3. Further sequences are added in a similar manner.

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CLUSTAL W and Other Hierarchical Alignment Software CLUSTAL W combines a good hierarchical method for multiple sequence alignment with an easy-to-use interface. The software is free, although a contribution to development costs is required when purchasing the program. CLUSTAL W runs on most computer platforms and incorporates many of the techniques described in the previous section. The program uses a series of different pair-score matrices, biases the location of gaps, and allows you to realign a set of aligned sequences to refine the alignment. CLUSTAL W can read a secondary structure ‘‘mask’’ and bias the positioning of gaps according to it; the program can also read two preexisting alignments and align them to each other or align a set of sequences to an existing alignment. CLUSTAL W also includes options to calculate neighbor-joining trees for use in inferring phylogeny. Although CLUSTAL W does not provide general tools for viewing these trees, the output is compatible with the PHYLIP package (Felsenstein, 1989) and the resultant trees can be viewed with that program. CLUSTAL W can read a variety of different common sequence formats and produce a range of different output formats. The manual for CLUSTAL W is clearly written and explains possible limitations of the alignment process. Although CLUSTAL W can be installed and run locally, users can also access it through a faster Web service via the EBI server by clicking the ‘‘Tools page’’. With the exception of manual editing and visualization, CLUSTAL W contains most of the tools that are needed to build and refine a multiple sequence alignment. When combined with JalView, as described below, the process of building and refining a multiple alignment is greatly simplified. Although CLUSTAL W is probably the most widely used multiple alignment program and for most purposes is adequate, other software exists having functionality not found in CLUSTAL W. For example, AMPS (Barton, 1990) provides a pairwise sequence comparison option with randomization, allowing Z-scores to be calculated. The program can also generate alignments without the need to calculate trees first. For large numbers of sequences, this can save a lot of time because it eliminates the need to perform all pairwise comparisons of the sequences. AMPS also has software to visualize trees, thus helping in the selection of sequences for alignment. However, the program has no simple menu interface; therefore, it is more difficult for the novice or occasional user to use.

More Rigorous Nonhierarchical Methods Hierarchical methods do not guarantee finding the one mathematically optimal multiple alignment for an entire set of sequences. However, in practice, the mathematical optimum rarely makes any more biological sense than the alignment that is found by hierarchical methods. This is probably because a great deal of effort has gone into tuning the parameters used by CLUSTAL W and other hierarchical methods to produce alignments that are consistent with those that a human expert or threedimensional structure comparison might produce. The widespread use of these techniques has also ensured that the parameters are appropriate for a wide range of alignment problems. More rigorous alignment methods that attempt to find the mathematically optimal alignment over a set of sequences (cf. Lipman et al., 1989) may be capable of giving better alignments, but, as shown in recent benchmark studies, they are, on average, no better than the hierarchical methods.

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Multiple Alignment by PSI-BLAST Multiple sequence alignments have long been used for more sensitive searches of protein sequence databases than is possible with a single sequence. The program PSI-BLAST (Altschul et al., 1997) has recently made these profile methods more easily available. As part of its search, PSI-BLAST generates a multiple alignment. However, this alignment is not like the alignments made by CLUSTAL W, AMPS, or other traditional multiple alignment tools. In a conventional multiple alignment, all sequences in the set have equal weight. As a consequence, a multiple alignment will normally be longer than any one of the individual sequences, since gaps will be inserted to optimize the alignment. In contrast, a PSI-BLAST multiple alignment is always exactly the length of the query sequence used in the search. If alignment of the query (or query profile) to a database sequence requires an insertion in the query, then the inserted region from the database sequence is simply discarded. The resulting alignment thus highlights the amino acids that may be aligned to each position in the query. Perhaps for this reason, PSI-BLAST multiple alignments and their associated frequency tables and profiles have proved very effective as input for programs that predict protein secondary structure (Jones, 1999; Cuff and Barton, 2000).

Multiple Protein Alignment From DNA Sequences Although most DNA sequences will have translations represented in the EMBLTrEMBL or NCBI-GenPept databases, this is not true of single-pass EST sequences. Because EST data are accumulating at an exponential pace, an automatic method of extracting useful protein information from ESTs has been developed. In brief, the ProtEST server (Cuff et al., 1999) searches EST collections and protein sequence databases with a protein query sequence. EST hits are assembled into species-specific contigs, and an error-tolerant alignment method is used to correct probable sequencing errors. Finally, any protein sequences found in the search are multiply aligned with the translations of the EST assemblies to produce a multiple protein sequence alignment. The JPred server (version 7.3) will generate a multiple protein sequence alignment when presented with a single protein sequence by searching the SWALL protein sequence database and building a multiple alignment. The JPred alignments are a good starting point for further analysis with more sensitive methods.

TOOLS TO ASSIST THE ANALYSIS OF MULTIPLE ALIGNMENTS A multiple sequence alignment can potentially consist of several hundred sequences that are 500 or more amino acids long. With such a volume of data, it can be difficult to find key features and present the alignments in a form that can be analyzed by eye. In the past, the only option was to print out the alignment on many sheets of paper, stick these together, and then pore over the massive poster with colored highlighter pens. This sort of approach can still be useful, but it is rather inconvenient! Visualization of the alignment is an important scientific tool, either for analysis or for publication. Appropriate use of color can highlight positions that are either identical in all the aligned sequences or share common physicochemical properties. ALSCRIPT (Barton, 1993) is a program to assist in this process. ALSCRIPT takes a multiple sequence alignment and a file of commands and produces a file in

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Figure 9.3. Example output from the program ALSCRIPT (Barton, 1993). Details can be found within the main text.

PostScript format suitable for printing out or viewing with a utility such as ghostview. Figure 9.3 illustrates a fragment of ALSCRIPT output (the full figure can be seen in color in Roach et al., 1995). In this example, identities across all sequences are shown in white on red and boxed, whereas positions with similar physicochemical properties are shown black on yellow and boxed. Residue numbering according to the bottom sequence is shown underneath the alignment. Green arrows illustrate the location of known ␤-strands, whereas ␣-helices are shown as black cylinders. Further symbols highlight specific positions in the alignment for easy cross-referencing to the text. ALSCRIPT is extremely flexible and has commands that permit control of font size and type, background coloring, and boxing down to the individual residue. The program will automatically split a large alignment over multiple pages, thus permitting alignments of any size to be visualized. However, this flexibility comes at a price. There is no point-and-click interface, and the program requires the user to be familiar with editing files and running programs from the command line. The ALSCRIPT distribution includes a comprehensive manual and example files that make the process of making a useful figure for your own data a little easier.

Subalignments—AMAS ALSCRIPT provides a few commands for calculating residue conservation across a family of sequences and coloring the alignment accordingly. However, it is really intended as a display tool for multiple alignments rather than an analysis tool. In contrast, AMAS (Analysis of Multiply Aligned Sequences; Livingstone and Barton, 1993) is a program for studying the relationships between sequences in a multiple alignment to identify possible functional residues. AMAS automatically runs ALSCRIPT to provide one output that is a boxed, colored, and annotated multiple alignment. Why might you want to run AMAS? A common question one faces is, ‘‘Which residues in a protein are important for its specificity?’’ AMAS can help identify these residues by highlighting similarities and differences between subgroups of sequences in a multiple alignment. For example, given a family of sequences that shows some variation, positions in a multiple alignment that are conserved across the entire family of sequences are likely to be important to stabilize the common fold of the protein or common functions. Positions that are conserved within a subset of the sequences, but different in the rest of the family, are likely to be those important to the specific function or specificity of that subset, and these positions can be easily identified using AMAS. There are a number of subtle types of differences that AMAS will search for, and these are summarized in Figure 9.4. To use AMAS, one must first have an idea of what subgroups of sequences exist in a multiple alignment of interest. One way to do this is to take a tree generated from the multiple alignment and

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identify clusters of sequences at some similarity threshold. This is also illustrated in Figure 9.4, in which three groups have been selected on the basis of the tree shown at the top left. Alternatively, if one knows in advance that finding common features and differences between, for example, sequences 1–20 and 21–50 in a multiple alignment is important, one can specify these ranges explicitly. The output of AMAS is a detailed text summary of the analysis as well as a colored and shaded multiple sequence alignment. By default, AMAS searches for general features of amino acid physicochemical properties. However, this can be narrowed down just to a single feature of amino acids such as charge. An example of a charge analysis is shown in Figure 9.5 for repeats within the annexin supergene family of proteins (Barton et al., 1991). The analysis highlights a charge swap within two subgroups of the sequences, correctly predicting the presence of a salt bridge in the native folded protein (Huber et al., 1990). The AMAS program may either be downloaded and run locally, or a subset of its options can be accessed over the Web at a server hosted by EBI.

Secondary Structure Prediction and the Prediction of Buried Residues From Multiple Sequence Alignment When aligning sequences, it is important to remember that the protein is a threedimensional molecule and not just a string of letters. Predicting secondary structure either for the whole collection of sequences or subsets of the sequences can be used to help discover how the protein might fold locally and guide the alignment of more distantly related sequences. For example, it is common for proteins with similar topologies to have quite different sequences and be unalignable by an automatic alignment method (e.g., see Russell and Barton, 1994; cf. the SCOP database, see Murzin et al., 1995, Chapter 5). In these circumstances, the secondary structure may suggest which blocks of sequences should be equivalent. The prediction of secondary structure (␣-helix and ␤-strand) is enhanced by around 6% when performed from a multiple alignment, compared with prediction from a single sequence (Cuff and

< Figure 9.4. Stylized output from the program AMAS. The sequence alignment has been shaded to illustrate similarities within each subgroup of sequences. Conservation numbers (Livingstone and Barton, 1993; Zvelebil et al., 1987) run from 0 to 10 and provide a numerical measure of the similarity in physicochemical properties of each column in the alignment. Below the alignment, the lines ‘‘Similar Pairs’’ show the conservation values obtained when each pair of subgroups is combined and the combined conservation number is not less than a threshold. For example, at position 7, subgroups A and B combine with a conservation number of 9. The lines ‘‘Different Pairs’’ illustrate positions at which a combination of subgroups lowers the conservation number below the threshold. For example, at position 3, there is an identity in subgroup B and one in C, but, when the groups are combined, the identity is lost and the conservation drops below the threshold of 8 to 7. A summary of the similarities and differences is given as a frequency histogram. Each upward bar represents the proportion of subgroup pairs that preserve conservation, whereas each downward bar shows the percentage of differences. For example, at position 6, 3/3 pairs are conserved (100%), whereas at positions 3 and 8, 1/3 pairs show (33%) differences With a large alignment, the histogram can quickly draw the eye to regions that are highly conserved or to regions where there are differences in conserved physicochemical properties.

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Figure 9.5. Illustration of an AMAS output used to find a charge pair in the annexins. There are four groups of sequences in the alignment. The highlighted positions highlight locations where the charge is conserved in each group of sequences yet different between groups. A change from glutamine to arginine is shown at position 1.

Barton 1999). The best current methods [PSIPRED (Jones, 1999) and JNET (Cuff and Barton, 2000)] give over 76% accuracy for the prediction of three states (␣helix, ␤-strand, and random coil) in rigorous testing. This high accuracy is possible because the prediction algorithms are able to locate regions in the sequences that show patterns of conserved physicochemical properties across the aligned family. These patterns are characteristic of particular secondary structure types and can often be seen by eye in a multiple sequence alignment, as summarized below: • Short runs of conserved hydrophobic residues suggest a buried ␤-strand. • i, i + 2, and i + 4 patterns of conserved hydrophobic amino acids suggest a surface ␤-strand, since the alternate residues in a strand point in the same direction. If the alternate residues all conserve similar physicochemical properties, then they are likely to form one face of a ␤-strand. • i, i + 3, i + 4, and i + 7, and variations of that pattern, (e.g., i, i + 4, i + 7) of conserved residues suggest an ␣-helix with one surface facing the solvent. • Insertions and deletions are normally only tolerated in regions not associated with the buried core of the protein. Thus, in a good multiple alignment, the location of indels suggests surface loops rather than ␣-helices or ␤-strands.

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• Although glycine and proline may be found in all secondary structure types, a glycine or proline residue that is conserved across a family of sequences is a strong indicator of a loop. Secondary structure prediction programs such as JNET (Cuff and Barton, 2000) and PHD (Rost and Sander, 1993) also exploit multiply aligned sequences to predict the likely exposure of each residue to solvent. Knowledge of solvent accessibility can help in the identification of residues key to stabilizing the fold of the protein as well as those that may be involved in binding. Both the JNET and PHD programs may be run from the JPred prediction server, whereas JNET may also be run from within JalView. [For further discussion of methods used to predict secondary structure, the reader is referred to Chapter 11.]

JalView AMAS and ALSCRIPT are not interactive: they run a script or set of commands and produce a PostScript file, which can be viewed on-screen using a Postscript viewer or just printed out. Although this provides the maximum number of options and flexibility in its display, it is comparatively slow and sometimes difficult to learn. In addition, the programs require a separate program to be run to generate the multiple alignment for analysis. If the alignment requires modification or subsets of the alignment are needed, a difficult cycle of editing and realigning is often required. The program JalView overcomes most of these problems. JalView encapsulates many of the most useful features of AMAS and ALSCRIPT in an interactive, mouse-driven program that will run on most computers with a Java interpreter. The core of JalView is an interactive alignment editor. This allows an existing alignment to be read into the program and individual residues or blocks of residues to be moved around. A few mouse clicks permit the sequences to be subset into a separate copy of JalView. JalView can call CLUSTAL W (Thompson et al., 1994) either as a local copy on the same computer that is running JalView or the CLUSTAL W server at EBI. Thus, one can also read in a set of unaligned sequences, align them with CLUSTAL W, edit the alignment, and take subsets with great ease. Further functions of JalView will calculate a simple, neighbor-joining tree from a multiple alignment and allow an AMAS-style analysis to be performed on the subgroups of sequences. If the tertiary structure of one of the proteins in the set is available, then the threedimensional structure may be viewed alongside the alignment in JalView. In addition, the JNET secondary structure prediction algorithm (Cuff and Barton, 2000) may be run on any subset of sequences in the alignment and the resulting prediction displayed along with the alignment. The JalView application is available for free download and, because it is written in Java, can also be run as an applet in a Web browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. Many alignment services such as the CLUSTAL W server at EBI and the Pfam server include JalView as an option to view the resulting multiple alignments. Figure 9.6 illustrates a typical JalView session with the alignment editing and tree windows open.

COLLECTIONS OF MULTIPLE ALIGNMENTS This chapter has focused on methods and servers for building multiple protein sequence alignments. Although proteins that are clearly similar by the Z-score measure

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Figure 9.6. An example JalView alignment editing and analysis session. The top panel contains a multiple alignment, and the bottom left is the similarity tree resulting from that alignment. A vertical line on the tree has separated the sequences into subgroups, which have been colored to highlight conservation within each subgroup. The panel at the bottom right illustrates an alternative clustering method.

should be straightforward to align by the automatic methods discussed here, getting good alignments for proteins with more remote similarities can be a very timeconsuming process. A number of groups have built collections of alignments using a combination of automation and expert curation [e.g., SMART (Schultz et al., 1998), Pfam (Bateman et al., 1999), and PRINTS (Attwood et al., 2000)], and these, together with the tools available at their Web sites, can provide an excellent starting point for further analyses.

INTERNET RESOURCES FOR TOPICS PRESENTED IN CHAPTER 9 CLUSTAL W AMAS JPred ProtEST JalView AMPS European Bioinformatics Institute

ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/software http://barton.ebi.ac.uk/servers/amas.html http://barton.ebi.ac.uk/servers/jpred.html http://barton.ebi.ac.uk/servers/protest.html http://barton.ebi.ac.uk/new/software.html http://barton.ebi.ac.uk/new/software.html http://www.ebi.ac.uk

PROBLEM SET

PROBLEM SET The following problems are based on the annexin supergene family, the same family used throughout the discussion in this chapter. This family contains a 100 amino acid residue unit that repeats either four, eight, or 16 times within each protein. The analysis required below will focus on the individual repeat units, rather than the organization of the repeat units within the full-length protein sequences. The problems will require the use of CLUSTAL W and Jalview, which you may have to install (or have installed) on a UNIX- or Linux-based system to which you have access. The files referred to below are available on the book’s Web site. The file ann rep1.fa contains the sequence of a single annexin domain. This sequence has been used as the query against the SWALL protein sequence database, using the program scanps to make the pairwise sequence comparisons. A partial listing of the results can be found in the file named ann rep1 frags.fa. Generation of a Multiple Sequence Alignment 1. Copy the file ann rep1 frags.fa to a new directory. 2. Run CLUSTAL W on ann rep1 frags.fa. Accept all defaults, and create an output file called ann rep1 frags.aln. 3. Pass this output file to Jalview by typing Jalview ann rep1 frags.aln CLUSTAL. 4. Select the fragment sequences by clicking on the ID code. Select Delete Selected Sequences from the Edit menu. 5. Save the modified alignment to a CLUSTAL-formatted file called ann rep1 frags del1.aln. 6. Select Average Distance Tree from the Calculate menu. A new window will now appear, and after a few moments, a tree (dendrogram) will be rendered within that window. There should be outliers at the very top of that tree, and these outliers will need to be eliminated. 7. Click on the tree to the left of where the outliers join the tree. A vertical line should now appear, and the outliers will be highlighted in a different color. 8. Return to the Alignment window and delete the outliers from the alignment, in the same way as was done in Step 4. Save the resulting alignment to a file named ann rep1 frags del2.aln. This series of steps produces a ‘‘clean alignment’’ for inspection. Positions within the alignment can be colored in different ways to highlight certain features of the amino acids within the alignment. For example, selecting Conservation from the Calculate menu will shade each column on the basis of the relative amino acid conservation seen at that particular position in the alignment. By doing so, it immediately becomes apparent which parts of the protein may lie within regions of secondary structure. Examine the area around positions 60 to 70 of the alignment;

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the pattern observed should be two conserved, two unconserved, and two conserved residues, a parttern that is characteristic of an alpha-helix. Select Jnet from the Align menu. This will return a secondary structure prediction based on the alignment. Alternatively, the alignment file can be submitted to the JPRED2 server at EBI. In order to submit the alignment to the JPRED2 server, the alignment must first be saved in MSF format (ann rep1 frags del2.msf). Either of these methods should corroborate that there is an alpha-helical region in the area around residues 60–70. By ‘‘cleaning’’ the alignment in this way, information about sequences (and sequences themselves) has been discarded. It is advisable to always save files at intermediate steps: the clean alignment will be relatively easy to interpret, but the results of the intermediate steps will have information about the parts of the alignment requiring more thought. Subfamily Analysis The following steps will allow a subfamily analysis to be performed on the annexin family. The input file is ideal annexins.als. 1. Start Jalview and read in the alignment file by typing ideal annexins.blc BLC. 2. Select Average Distance Tree from the Calculate menu. The resultant tree will have four clear clusters with one outlier. Click on the tree at an appropriate position to draw a vertical line and highlight the four clusters. 3. Return to the Alignment window. Select Conservation from the Calculate menu. The most highly-conserved positions within each subgroup of sequences will be colored the brightest. Examine the alignment, and identify the charge-pair shown as an example in this Chapter. Selecting either the Taylor or Zappo color schemes may help in identifying the desired region. 4. Submit the file ideal annexins.blc to the AMAS Web server. On the Web page, paste the contents of ideal annexins.blc into the Alignment window, then paste the contents of the file ideal annexins.grp into the Sensible Groups window. The server should return results quickly, providing links to a number of output files. The Pretty Output file contains the PostScript alignment, which should be identical to ideal annexins amas.ps provided here.

REFERENCES Altschul, S. F., Madden, T. L., Schaffer, A. A., Zhang, J., Zhang, Z., Miller, W., and Lipman, D. J. (1997). Gapped blast and psi-blast: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucl. Acids Res. 25, 3389–3402. Attwood, T. K., Croning, M. D. R., Flower, D. R., Lewis, A. P., Mabey, J. E., Scordis, P., Selley, J., and Wright. W. (2000). Prints-s: the database formerly known as prints. Nucl. Acids Res. 28, 225–227. Barton, G. J. (1990). Protein multiple sequence alignment and flexible pattern matching. Methods Enz. 183, 403–428. Barton, G. J. (1993). ALSCRIPT: A tool to format multiple sequence alignments. Prot. Eng. 6, 37–40.

REFERENCES

Barton, G. J., Newman, R. H., Freemont, P. F., and Crumpton, M. J. (1991). Amino acid sequence analysis of the annexin super-gene family of proteins. European J. Biochem. 198, 749–760. Barton, G. J., and Sternberg, M. J. E. Evaluation and improvements in the automatic alignment of protein sequences. (1987). Prot. Eng. 1, 89–94. Barton, G. J., and Sternberg, M. J. E. (1987). A strategy for the rapid multiple alignment of protein sequences: Confidence levels from tertiary structure comparisons. J. Mol. Biol. 198, 327–337. Barton, G. J., and Sternberg, M. J. E. (1990). Flexible protein sequence patternsa sensitive method to detect weak structural similarities. J. Mol. Biol. 212, 389–402. Bateman, A., Birney, E., Durbin, R., Eddy, S. R., Finn, R. D., and Sonnhammer, E. L. L. Pfam 3.1: 1313 multiple alignments match the majority of proteins. Nucl. Acids Res. 27, 260–262. Cuff, J. A., and Barton, G. J. (1999). Evaluation and improvement of multiple sequence methods for protein secondary structure prediction. Proteins 34, 508–519. Cuff, J. A., and Barton, G. J. (2000). Application of multiple sequence alignment profiles to improve protein secondary structure prediction. Proteins 40, 502–511. Cuff, J. A., Birney, E., Clamp, M. E., and Barton, G. J. (2000). ProtEST: Protein multiple sequence alignments from expressed sequence tags. Bioinformatics 6: 111–116. Felsenstein, J. (1989). Phylip—phylogeny inference package (version 3.2). Cladistics 5, 164– 166. Murzin, A. G., Brenner, S. E., Hubbard, T., and Chothia, C. (1995). Scop: a structural classification of proteins database for the investigation of sequences and structures. J. Mol. Biol. 247, 536–540. Gotoh, O. (1996). Significant improvement in accuracy of multiple protein sequence alignments by iterative refinement as assessed by reference to structural alignments. J. Mol. Biol. 264, 823–838. Gribskov, M., McLachlan, A. D., and Eisenberg, D. (1987). Profile analysis: detection of distantly related proteins. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 84, 4355–4358. Huber, R., Romsich, J., and Paques, E.-P. (1990). The crystal and molecular structure of human annexin v, an anticoagulant protein that binds to calcium and membranes. EMBO J. 9, 3867–3874. Jones, D. T. (1999). Protein secondary structure prediction based on position-specific scoring matrices. J. Mol. Biol. 17, 195–202. Lesk, A. M., Levitt, M., and Chothia, C. (1986). Alignment of the amino acid sequences of distantly related proteins using variable gap penalties. Prot. Eng. 1, 77–78. Lipman, D. J., Altschul, S. F., and Kececioglu, J. D. (1989). A tool for multiple sequence alignment. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 86, 4412–4415. Livingstone, C. D., and Barton, G. J. (1993). Protein sequence alignments: A strategy for the hierarchical analysis of residue conservation. Comp. App. Biosci. 9, 745–756. Pascarella, S., and Argos, P. (1992). Analysis of insertions/deletions in protein structures. J. Mol. Biol. 224, 461–471. Roach, P. L., Clifton, I. J., Fulop, V., Harlos, K., Barton, G. J., Hajdu, J., Andersson, I., Schofield, C. J., and Baldwin, J. E. (1995). Crystal structure of isopenicillin n synthase is the first from a new structural family of enzymes. Nature 375, 700–704. Rost, B., and Sander, C. (1993). Prediction of protein secondary structure at better than 70% accuracy. J. Mol. Biol. 232, 584–599.

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Russell, R. B., and Barton, G. J. (1992). Multiple protein sequence alignment from tertiary structure comparison: assignment of global and residue confidence levels. Proteins 14, 309–323. Russell, R. B., and Barton, G. J. (1994). Structural features can be unconserved in proteins with similar folds. J. Mol. Biol. 244, 332–350. Schultz, J., Milpetz, F., Bork, P., and Ponting, C. P. (1998). Smart, a simple modular architecture research tool: Identification of signalling domains. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 95, 5857–5864. Thompson, J. D., Higgins, D. G., and Gibson, T. J. (1994). Clustal W: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, positionspecific gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Nucl. Acids Res. 22, 4673–4680. Zvelebil, M. J. J. M., Barton, G. J., Taylor, W. R., and Sternberg, M. J. E. (1987). Prediction of protein secondary structure and active sites using the alignment of homologous sequences. J. Mol. Biol. 195, 957–961.

10 PREDICTIVE METHODS USING DNA SEQUENCES Andreas D. Baxevanis Genome Technology Branch National Human Genome Research Institute National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland With the announcement of the completion of a ‘‘working draft’’ of the sequence of the human genome in June 2000 and the Human Genome Project targeting the completion of sequencing in 2002, investigators will be faced with the challenge of developing a strategy by which they can deal with the oncoming flood of both unfinished and finished data, whether the data are generated in their own laboratories or at one of the major sequencing centers. These data undergo what can best be described as a maturation process, starting as single reads off of a sequencing machine, passing through a phase where the data become part of an assembled (yet incomplete) sequence contig, and finally ending up as part of a finished, completely assembled sequence with an error rate of less than one in 10,000 bases. Even before such sequencing data reach this highly polished state, investigators can begin to ask whether or not given stretches of sequence represent coding or noncoding regions. The ability to make such determinations is of great relevance in the context of systematic sequencing efforts, since all of the data being generated by these projects are, in essence, ‘‘anonymous’’ in nature—nothing is known about the coding potential of these stretches of DNA as they are being sequenced. As such, automated methods will become increasingly important in annotating the human and other genomes to increase the intrinsic value of these data as they are being deposited into the public databases. In considering the problem of gene identification, it is important to briefly go over the basic biology underlying what will become, in essence, a mathematical 233

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problem (Fig. 10.1). At the DNA level, upstream of a given gene, there are promoters and other regulatory elements that control the transcription of that gene. The gene itself is discontinuous, comprising both introns and exons. Once this stretch of DNA is transcribed into an RNA molecule, both ends of the RNA are modified, capping the 5⬘ end and placing a polyA signal at the 3⬘ end. The RNA molecule reaches maturity when the introns are spliced out, based on short consensus sequences found both at the intron-exon boundaries and within the introns themselves. Once splicing has occurred and the start and stop codons have been established, the mature mRNA is transported through a nuclear pore into the cytoplasm, at which point translation can take place. Although the process of moving from DNA to protein is obviously more complex in eukaryotes than it is in prokaryotes, the mere fact that it can be described in its entirety in eukaryotes would lead one to believe that predictions can confidently be made as to the exact positions of introns and exons. Unfortunately, the signals that control the process of moving from the DNA level to the protein level are not very well defined, precluding their use as foolproof indicators of gene structure. For example, upward of 70% of the promoter regions contain a TATA box, but, because the remainder do not, the presence (or absence) of the TATA box in and of itself cannot be used to assess whether a region is a promoter. Similarly, during end modification, the polyA tail may be present or absent or may not contain the canonical

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Figure 10.1. The central dogma. Proceeding from the DNA through the RNA to the protein level, various sequence features and modifications can be identified that can be used in the computational deduction of gene structure. These include the presence of promoter and regulatory regions, intron-exon boundaries, and both start and stop signals. Unfortunately, these signals are not always present, and, when they are present, they may not always be in the same form or context. The reader is referred to the text for greater detail.

GRAIL

AATAAA. Adding to these complications is the fact that an open reading frame is required but is not sufficient for judging a region as being an exon. Given these and other considerations, there is at present no straightforward method that will allow for 100% confidence in the prediction of an intron or an exon. Despite this, a combinatorial approach can be used, relying on a number of methods, to increase the confidence with which gene structure is predicted. Briefly, gene-finding strategies can be grouped into three major categories. Content-based methods rely on the overall, bulk properties of a sequence in making a determination. Characteristics considered here include how often particular codons are used, the periodicity of repeats, and the compositional complexity of the sequence. Because different organisms use synonymous codons with different frequency, such clues can provide insight into determining regions that are more likely to be exons. In site-based methods, the focus turns to the presence or absence of a specific sequence, pattern, or consensus. These methods are used to detect features such as donor and acceptor splice sites, binding sites for transcription factors, polyA tracts, and start and stop codons. Finally, comparative methods make determinations based on sequence homology. Here, translated sequences are subjected to database searches against protein sequences (cf. Chapter 8) to determine whether a previously characterized coding region corresponds to a region in the query sequence. Although this is conceptually the most straightforward of the methods, it is restrictive because most newly discovered genes do not have gene products that match anything in the protein databases. Also, the modular nature of proteins and the fact that there are only a limited number of protein motifs (Chothia and Lesk, 1986) make predicting anything more than just exonic regions in this way difficult. The reader is referred to a number of excellent reviews detailing the theoretical underpinnings of these various classes of methods (Claverie, 1997a; Claverie, 1997b; Guigo´, 1997; Snyder and Stormo, 1997; Claverie, 1998; Rogic et al., 2001). Although many of the gene prediction methods belong strictly to one of these three classes of methods, most of the methods that will be discussed here use the strength of combining different classes of methods to optimize predictions. With the complexity of the problem at hand and the various approaches described above for tackling the problem, it becomes important for investigators to gain an appreciation for when and how each particular method should be applied. A recurring theme in this chapter will be the fact that, depending on the nature of the data, each method will perform differently. Put another way, although one method may be best for human finished sequences, another may be better for unfinished sequences or for sequences from another organism. In this chapter, we will examine a number of the commonly used methods that are freely available in the public domain, focusing on their application to human sequence data; this will be followed by a general discussion of gene-finding strategy.

GRAIL GRAIL, which stands for Gene Recognition and Analysis Internet Link (Uberbacher and Mural, 1991; Mural et al., 1992), is the elder statesman of the gene prediction techniques because it is among the first of the techniques developed in this area and enjoys widespread usage. As more and more has become known about gene structure

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in general and better Internet tools have become more widespread, GRAIL has continuously evolved to keep in step with the current state of the field. There are two basic GRAIL versions that will be discussed in the context of this discussion. GRAIL 1 makes use of a neural network method to recognize coding potential in fixed-length (100 base) windows considering the sequence itself, without looking for additional features such as splice junctions or start and stop codons. An improved version of GRAIL 1 (called GRAIL 1a) expands on this method by considering regions immediately adjacent to regions deemed to have coding potential, resulting in better performance in both finding true exons and eliminating false positives. Either GRAIL 1 or GRAIL 1a would be appropriate in the context of searching for single exons. A further refinement led to a second version, called GRAIL 2, in which variable-length windows are used and contextual information (e.g., splice junctions, start and stop codons, polyA signals) is considered. Because GRAIL 2 makes its prediction by taking genomic context into account, it is appropriate for determining model gene structures. In this chapter, the output of each of the methods discussed will be shown using the same set of input data as the query. The sequence that will be considered is that of a human BAC clone RG364P16 from 7q31, a clone established as part of the systematic sequencing of chromosome 7 (GenBank AC002467). By using the same example throughout, the strengths and weaknesses of each of the discussed methods can be highlighted. For purposes of this example, a client-server application called XGRAIL will be used. This software, which runs on the UNIX platform, allows for graphical output of GRAIL 1/1a/2 results, as shown in Figure 10.2. Because the DNA sequence in question is rather large and is apt to contain at least one gene, GRAIL 2 was selected as the method. The large, upper window presents an overview of the ⬃98 kb making up this clone, and the user can selectively turn on or off particular markings that identify features within the sequence (described in the figure legend). Of most importance in this view is the prediction of exons at the very top of the window, with the histogram representing the probability that a given region represents an exon. Information on each one of the predicted exons is shown in the Model Exons window, and the model exons can be assembled and shown as both Model Genes and as a Protein Translation. Only putative exons with acceptable probability values (as defined in the GRAIL algorithm) are included in the gene models. The protein translation can, in turn, be searched against the public databases to find sequence homologs using a program called genQuest (integrated into XGRAIL), and these are shown in the Db Hits window. In this case, the 15 exons in the first gene model (from the forward strand) are translated into a protein that shows significant sequence homology to a group of proteins putatively involved in anion transport (Everett et al., 1997). Most recently, the authors of GRAIL have released GRAIL-EXP, which is based on GRAIL but uses additional information in making the predictions, including a database search of known complete and partial gene messages. The inclusion of this database search in deducing gene models has greatly improved the performance of the original GRAIL algorithm.

FGENEH/FGENES FGENEH, developed by Victor Solovyev and colleagues, is a method that predicts internal exons by looking for structural features such as donor and acceptor splice

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Figure 10.2. XGRAIL output using the human BAC clone RG364P16 from 7q31 as the query. The upper window shows the results of the prediction, with the histogram representing the probability that a given stretch of DNA is an exon. The various bars in the center represent features of the DNA (e.g., arrows represent repetitive DNA, and vertical bars represent repeat sequences). Exon and gene models, protein translations, and the results of a genQuest search using the protein translation are shown. (See color plate.)

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sites, putative coding regions, and intronic regions both 5⬘ and 3⬘ to the putative exon (Solovyev et al., 1994a; Solovyev et al., 1994b; Solovyev et al., 1995). The method makes use of linear discriminant analysis, a mathematical technique that allows data from multiple experiments to be combined. Once the data are combined, a linear function is used to discriminate between two classes of events—here, whether a given stretch of DNA is or is not an exon. In FGENEH, results of the linear discriminant approach are then passed to a dynamic programming algorithm that determines how to best combine these predicted exons into a coherent gene model. An extension of FGENEH, called FGENES, can be used in cases when multiple genes are expected in a given stretch of DNA. The Sanger Centre Web server provides a very simple front-end for performing FGENES. The query sequence (again, the BAC clone from 7q31) is pasted into the query box, an identifier is entered, and the search can then be performed. The results are returned in a tabular format, as shown in Figure 10.3. The total number of predicted genes and exons (2 and 33, respectively) is shown at the top of the output. The information for each gene (G) then follows. For each predicted exon, the strand (Str) is given, with + indicating the forward strand and – indicating the reverse. The Feature list in this particular case includes initial exons (CDSf), internal exons (CDSi), terminal exons (CDSl), and polyA regions (PolA). The nucleotide region for the predicted feature is then given as a range. In the current example, the features of the second predicted gene are shown in reverse order, since the prediction is based on the reverse strand. On the basis of the information in the table, predicted proteins are given at the bottom of the output in FASTA format. The definition line for each of the predicted proteins gives the range of nucleotide residues involved, as well as the total length of the protein and the direction (+ / - ) of the predicted gene.

MZEF MZEF stands for ‘‘Michael Zhang’s Exon Finder,’’ after its author at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The predictions rely on a technique called quadratic discriminant analysis (Zhang, 1997). Imagine a case in which the results of two types of predictions are plotted against each other on a simple XY graph (for instance, splice site scores vs. exon length). If the relationship between these two sets of data is nonlinear or multivariate, the resulting graph will look like a swarm of points. Points lying in only a small part of this swarm will represent a ‘‘correct’’ prediction; to separate the correctly predicted points from the incorrectly predicted points in the swarm, a quadratic function is used, hence the name of the technique. In the case of MZEF, the measured variables include exon length, intron-exon and exon-intron transitions, branch sites, 3⬘ and 5⬘ splice sites, and exon, strand, and frame scores. MZEF is intended to predict internal coding exons and does not give any other information with respect to gene structure. There are two implementations of MZEF currently available. The program can be downloaded from the CSHL FTP site for UNIX command-line use, or the program can be accessed through a Web front-end. The input is a single sequence, read in only one direction (either the forward or the reverse strand); to perform MZEF on both strands, the program must be run twice. Returning to the BAC clone from chromosome 7, MZEF predicts a total of 27 exons in the forward strand (Fig. 10.4). Focusing in on the first two columns of the table, the region of the prediction is

MZEF

Figure 10.3. FGENES output using the human BAC clone RG364P16 from 7q31 as the query. The columns, going from left to right, represent the gene number (G), strand (Str), feature (described in the main text), start and end points for the predicted exon, a scoring weight, and start and end points for corresponding open reading frames (ORF-start and ORF-end). Each predicted gene is shown as a separate block. The tables are followed by protein translations of any predicted gene products.

given as a range, followed by the probability that the prediction is correct (P). Predictions with P > 0.5 are considered correct and are included in the table. Immediately, one begins to see the difference in the predictions between methods. MZEF is again geared toward finding single exons; therefore, the exons are not shown in the context of a putative gene, as they are in GRAIL 2 or FGENES. However, the exons predicted by these methods are not the same, a point that we will return to later in this discussion.

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Figure 10.4. MZEF output using the human BAC clone RG364P16 from 7q31 as the query. The columns, going from left to right, give the location of the prediction as a range of included bases (Coordinates), the probability value (P), frame preference scores, an ORF indicator showing which reading frames are open, and scores for the 3⬘ splice site, coding regions, and 5⬘ splice site.

GENSCAN GENSCAN, developed by Chris Burge and Sam Karlin (Burge and Karlin, 1997; Burge and Karlin, 1998), is designed to predict complete gene structures. As such, GENSCAN can identify introns, exons, promoter sites, and polyA signals, as do a number of the other gene identification algorithms. Like FGENES, GENSCAN does not expect the input sequence to represent one and only one gene or one and only one exon: it can accurately make predictions for sequences representing either partial genes or multiple genes separated by intergenic DNA. The ability to make these predictions accurately when a sequence is in a variety of contexts makes GENSCAN a particularly useful method for gene identification. GENSCAN relies on what the author terms a ‘‘probabilistic model’’ of genomic sequence composition and gene structure. By looking for gene structure descriptions that match or are consistent with the query sequence, the algorithm can assign a probability as to the chance that a given stretch of sequence represents an exon, promoter, and so forth. The ‘‘optimal exons’’ are the ones with the highest probability and represent the part of the query sequence having the best chance of actually being an exon. The method will also predict ‘‘suboptimal exons,’’ stretches of sequence having an acceptable probability value but one not as good as the optimal one. The authors of the method encourage users to examine both sets of predictions so that

PROCRUSTES

alternatively spliced regions of genes or other nonstandard gene structures are not missed. With the use of the human BAC clone from 7q31 again, the query can be issued directly from the GENSCAN Web site, using Vertebrate as the organism, the default suboptimal cutoff, and Predicted Peptides Only as the print option. The results for this query are shown in Figure 10.5. The output indicates that there are three genes in this region, with the first gene having 11 exons, the second gene having 13 exons, and the third gene having 10 exons. The most important columns in the table are those labeled Type and P. The Type column indicates whether the prediction is for an initial exon (Init), an internal exon (Intr), a terminal exon (Term), a single-exon gene (Sngl), a promoter region (Prom), or a polyA signal (PlyA). The P column gives the probability that this prediction is actually correct. GENSCAN exons having a very high probability value (P > 0.99) are 97.7% accurate where the prediction matches a true, annotated exon. These high-probability predictions can be used in the rational design of PCR primers for cDNA amplification or for other purposes where extremely high confidence is necessary. GENSCAN exons that have probabilities in the range from 0.50 to 0.99 are deemed to be correct most of the time; the best-case accuracies for P-values over 0.90 is on the order of 88%. Any predictions below 0.50 should be discarded as unreliable, and those data are not given in the table. An alternative view of the data is shown in Figure 10.6. Here, both the optimal and suboptimal exons are shown, with the initial and terminal exons showing the direction in which the prediction is being made (5⬘ → 3⬘ or 3⬘ → 5⬘). This view is particularly useful for large stretches of DNA, as the tables become harder to interpret when more and more exons are predicted. By the time of this printing, a new program named GenomeScan will be available from the Burge laboratory at MIT. GenomeScan assigns a higher score to putative exons that overlap BLASTX hits than to comparable exons for which similarity evidence is lacking. Regions of higher similarity (according to BLASTX E-value, for example) are accorded more confidence than regions of lower similarity, since weak similarities sometimes do not represent homology. Thus, the predictions of GenomeScan tend to be consistent with all or almost all of the regions of high detected similarity but may sometimes ignore a region of weak similarity that either has weak intrinsic properties (e.g., poor splice signals) or is inconsistent with other extrinsic information. The accuracy of GenomeScan tends to be significantly higher than that of GENSCAN when a moderate or closely related protein sequence is available. An example of the improved accuracy of GenomeScan over GENSCAN, using the human BRCA1 gene as the query, is shown in Figure 10.7.

PROCRUSTES Greek mythology heralds the story of Theseus, the king of Athens who underwent many trials and tribulations on his way to becoming a hero, along with Hercules. As if Amazons and the Minotaur were not enough, in the course of his travels, Theseus happened upon Procrustes, a bandit with a warped idea of hospitality. Procrustes, which means ‘‘he who stretches,’’ would invite passersby into his home for a meal and a night’s stay in his guest bed. The problem lay, quite literally, in the bed, in that Procrustes would make sure that his guests fit in the bed by stretching them out on a rack if they were too short or by chopping off their legs if they were too long.

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Figure 10.5. GENSCAN output using the human BAC clone RG364P16 from 7q31 as the query. The columns, going from left to right, represent the gene and exon number (Gn.Ex), the type of prediction (Type), the strand on which the prediction was made (S, with + as the forward strand and - as the reverse), the beginning and endpoints for the prediction (Begin and End), the length of the prediction (Len), the reading frame of the prediction (Fr), several scoring columns, and the probability value (P). Each predicted gene is shown as a separate block; notice that the third gene has its exons listed in reverse order, reflecting that the prediction is on the reverse strand. The tables are followed by the protein translations for each of the three predicted genes.

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Figure 10.6. GENSCAN output in graphical form, using the human BAC clone RG364P16 from 7q31 as the query. Optimal and suboptimal exons are indicated, and the initial and terminal exons show the direction in which the prediction is being made (5⬘ → 3⬘ or 3⬘ → 5⬘).

Theseus made short order of Procrustes by fitting him to his own bed, thereby sparing any other traveler the same fate. On the basis of this story, the phrase ‘‘bed of Procrustes’’ has come to convey the idea of forcing something to fit where it normally would not. Living up to its namesake, PROCRUSTES takes genomic DNA sequences and ‘‘forces’’ them to fit into a pattern as defined by a related target protein (Gelfand et al., 1996). Unlike the other gene prediction methods that have been discussed, the algorithm does not use a DNA sequence on its own to look for content- or site-based signals. Instead, the algorithm requires that the user identify putative gene products before the prediction is made, so that the prediction represents the best fit of the given DNA sequence to its putative transcription product. The method uses a spliced alignment algorithm to sequentially explore all possible exon assemblies, looking for the best fit of predicted gene structure to candidate protein. If the candidate protein is known to arise from the query DNA sequence, correct gene structures can be predicted with an accuracy of 99% or better. By making use of candidate proteins in the course of the prediction, PROCRUSTES can take advantage of information known about this protein or related proteins in the public databases to better deter-

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(top line) is missing a number of the exons that appear in the annotation for the BRCA1 gene (second line; GenBank L78833), and the GENSCAN prediction is slightly longer than the actual gene at the 5⬘ end. The inclusion of BLASTX hit information (vertical bars closest to the scale) in GenomeScan produces a more complete and accurate prediction (third line).

Figure 10.7. Comparison of GENSCAN with GenomeScan, using the human BRCA1 gene sequence as the query. The GENSCAN prediction

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GeneParser

mine the location of the introns and the exons in this gene. PROCRUSTES can handle cases where there are either partial or multiple genes in the query DNA sequence. The input to PROCRUSTES is through a Web interface and is quite simple. The user needs to supply the nucleotide sequence and as many protein sequences as are relevant to this region. The supplied protein sequences will be treated as being similar, though not necessarily identical, to that encoded by the DNA sequence. Typical output from PROCRUSTES (not shown here) includes an aligned map of the predicted intron-exon structure for all target proteins, probability values, a list of exons with their starting and ending nucleotide positions, translations of the gene model (which may not be the same as the sequence of the initially supplied protein), and a ‘‘spliced alignment’’ showing any differences between the predicted protein and the target protein. The nature of the results makes PROCRUSTES a valuable method for refining results obtained by other methods, particularly in the context of positional candidate efforts.

GeneID The current version of GeneID finds exons based on measures of coding potential (Guigo´ et al., 1992). The original version of this program was among the fastest in that it used a rule-based system to examine the putative exons and assemble them into the ‘‘most likely gene’’ for that sequence. GeneID uses position-weight matrices to assess whether or not a given stretch of sequence represents a splice site or a start or stop codon. Once this assessment is made, models of putative exons are built. On the basis of the sets of predicted exons that GeneID develops, a final refinement round is performed, yielding the most probable gene structure based on the input sequence. The interface to GeneID is through a simple Web front-end, in which the user pastes in the DNA sequence and specifies whether the organism is either human or Drosophila. The user can specify whether predictions should be made only on the forward or reverse strand, and available output options include lists of putative acceptor sites, donor sites, and start and stop codons. Users can also limit output to only first exons, internal exons, terminal exons, or single genes, for specialized analyses. It is recommended that the user simply select All Exons to assure that all relevant information is returned.

GeneParser GeneParser (Snyder and Stormo, 1993; Snyder and Stormo, 1997) uses a slightly different approach in identifying putative introns and exons. Instead of predetermining candidate regions of interest, GeneParser computes scores on all ‘‘subintervals’’ in a submitted sequence. Once each subinterval is scored, a neural network approach is used to determine whether each subinterval contains a first exon, internal exon, final exon, or intron. The individual predictions are then analyzed for the combination that represents the most likely gene. There is no Web front-end for this program, but the program itself is freely available for use on Sun, DEC, and SGI-based systems.

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HMMgene HMMgene predicts whole genes in any given DNA sequence using a hidden Markov model (HMM) method geared toward maximizing the probability of an accurate prediction (Krogh, 1997). The use of HMMs in this method helps to assess the confidence in any one prediction, enabling HMMgene to not only report the ‘‘best’’ prediction for the input sequence but alternative predictions on the same sequence as well. One of the strengths of this method is that, by returning multiple predictions on the same region, the user may be able to gain insight onto possible alternative splicings that may occur in a region containing a single gene. The front-end for HMMgene requires an input sequence, with the organismal options being either human or C. elegans. An interesting addition is that the user can include known annotations, which could be from one of the public databases or based on experimental data that the investigator is privy to. Multiple sequences in FASTA format can be submitted as a single job to the server. Examples of sequence input format and resulting output are given in the documentation file at the HMMgene Web site.

HOW WELL DO THE METHODS WORK? As we have already seen, different methods produce different types of results—in some cases, lists of putative exons are returned but these exons are not in a genomic context; in other cases, complete gene structures are predicted but possibly at a cost of less-reliable individual exon predictions. Looking at the absolute results for the 7q31 BAC clone, anywhere between one and three genes are predicted for the region, and those one to three genes have anywhere between 27 and 34 exons. In cases of similar exons, the boundaries of the exons are not always consistent. Which method is the ‘‘winner’’ in this particular case is not important; what is important is the variance in the results. Returning to the cautionary note that different methods will perform better or worse, depending on the system being examined, it becomes important to be able to quantify the performance of each of these algorithms. Several studies have systematically examined the rigor of these methods using a variety of test data sets (Burset and Guigo´, 1996; Claverie, 1997a; Snyder and Stormo, 1997, Rogic et al., 2001). Before discussing the results of these studies, it is necessary to define some terms. For any given prediction, there are four possible outcomes: the detection of a true positive, true negative, false positive, or false negative (Fig. 10.8). Two measures of accuracy can be calculated based on the ratios of these occurrences: a sensitivity value, reflecting the fraction of actual coding regions that are correctly predicted as truly being coding regions, and a specificity value, reflecting the overall fraction of the prediction that is correct. In the best-case scenario, the methods will try to optimize the balance between sensitivity and specificity, to be able to find all of the true exons without becoming so sensitive as to start picking up an inordinate amount of false positives. An easier-to-understand measure that combines the sensitivity and specificity values is called the correlation coefficient. Like all correlation coefficients, its value can range from - 1, meaning that the prediction is always wrong, through zero, to + 1, meaning that the prediction is always right.

HOW WELL DO THE METHODS WORK?

Figure 10.8. Sensitivity vs. specificity. In the upper portion, the four possible outcomes of a prediction are shown: a true positive (TP), a true negative (TN ), a false positive (FP), and a false negative (FN ). The matrix at the bottom shows how both sensitivity and specificity are determined from these four possible outcomes, giving a tangible measure of the effectiveness of any gene prediction method. (Figure adapted from Burset and Guigo´, 1996; Snyder and Stormo, 1997.)

As a result of a Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory meeting on gene prediction,1 a Web site called the ‘‘Banbury Cross’’ was created. The intent behind creating such a Web site was twofold: for groups actively involved in program development to post their methods for public use and for researchers actively deriving fully characterized, finished genomic sequence to submit such data for use as ‘‘benchmark’’ sequences. In this way, the meeting participants created an active forum for the dissemination of the most recent findings in the field of gene identification. Using these and other published studies, Jean-Michel Claverie at CNRS in Marseille compared the sensitivity and specificity of 14 different gene identification programs (Claverie, 1997, and references therein); PROCRUSTES was not one of the 14 considered, since the method varies substantially from that employed by other gene prediction programs. In examining data from these disparate sources, either the best performance found in an independent study or the worst performance reported by the authors of the method themselves was used in making the comparisons. On the basis of these comparisons, the best overall individual exon finder was deemed to be MZEF and the best gene structure prediction program was deemed to be GENSCAN. (By back-calculating as best as possible from the numbers reported in the Claverie paper, these two methods gave the highest correlation coefficients within their class, with CCMZEF ~ 0.79 and CCGENSCAN ~ 0.86.) 1

Finding Genes: Computational Analysis of DNA Sequences. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, March 1997.

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Because these gene-finding programs are undergoing a constant evolution, adding new features and incorporating new biological information, the idea of a comparative analysis of a number of representative algorithms was recently revisited (Rogic et al., 2001). One of the encouraging outcomes of this study was that these newer methods, as a whole, did a substantially better job in accurately predicting gene structures than their predecessors did. By using an independent data set containing 195 sequences from GenBank in which intron-exon boundaries have been annotated, GENSCAN and HMMgene appeared to perform the best, both having a correlation coefficient of 0.91. (Note the improvement of CCGENSCAN from the time of the Burset and Guigo´ study to the time of the Rogic et al. study.)

STRATEGIES AND CONSIDERATIONS Given these statistics, it can be concluded that both MZEF and GENSCAN are particularly suited for differentiating introns from exons at different stages in the maturation of sequence data. However, this should not be interpreted as a blanket recommendation to only use these two programs in gene identification. Remember that these results represent a compilation of findings from different sources, so keep in mind that the reported results may not have been derived from the same data set. It has already been stated numerous times that any given program can behave better or worse depending on the input sequences. It has also been demonstrated that the actual performance of these methods can be highly sensitive to G + C content. For example, Snyder and Stormo (1997) reported that GeneParser (Snyder and Stormo, 1993) and GRAIL2 (with assembly) performed best on test sets having high G + C content (as assessed by their respective CC values), whereas GeneID (Guigo´ et al., 1992) performed best on test sets having low G + C content. Interestingly, both GENSCAN and HMMgene were seen to perform ‘‘steadily,’’ regardless of G + C content, in the Rogic study (Rogic et al., 2001). There are several major drawbacks that most gene identification programs share that users need to be keenly aware of. Because most of these methods are ‘‘trained’’ on test data, they will work best in finding genes most similar to those in the training sets (that is, they will work best on things similar to what they have seen before). Often methods have an absolute requirement to predict both a discrete beginning and an end to a gene, meaning that these methods may miscall a region that consists of either a partial gene or multiple genes. The importance given to each individual factor in deciding whether a stretch of sequence is an intron or an exon can also influence outcomes, as the weighing of each criterion may be either biased or incorrect. Finally, there is the unusual case of genes that are transcribed but not translated (so-called ‘‘noncoding RNA genes’’). One such gene, NTT (noncoding transcript in T cells), shows no exons or significant open reading frames, even though RT-PCR shows that NTT is transcribed as a polyadenlyated 17-kb mRNA (Liu et al., 1997). A similar protein, IPW, is involved in imprinting, and its expression is correlated to the incidence of Prader-Willi syndrome (Wevrick et al., 1996). Because hallmark features of gene structure are presumably absent from these genes, they cannot be reliably detected by any known method to date. It begins to become evident that no one program provides the foolproof key to computational gene identification. The correct choice will depend on the nature of

S T R AT E G I E S A N D C O N S I D E R AT I O N S

the data and where in the pathway of data maturation the data lie. On the basis of the studies described above, some starting points can be recommended. In the case of incompletely assembled sequence contigs (prefinished genome survey sequence), MZEF provides the best jumping-off point, since, for sequences of this length, one would expect no more than one exon. In the case of nearly finished or finished data, where much larger contigs provide a good deal of contextual information, GENSCAN or HMMgene would be an appropriate choice. In either case, users should supplement these predictions with results from at least one other predictive method, as consistency among methods can be used as a qualitative measure of the robustness of the results. Furthermore, utilization of comparative search methods, such as BLAST (Altschul et al., 1997) or FASTA (Pearson et al., 1997), should be considered an absolute requirement, with users targeting both dbEST and the protein databases for homology-based clues. PROCRUSTES again should be used when some information regarding the putative gene product is known, particularly when the cloning efforts are part of a positional candidate strategy. A good example of the combinatorial approach is illustrated in the case of the gene for cerebral cavernous malformation (CCM1) located at 7q21–7q22; here, a combination of MZEF, GENSCAN, XGRAIL, and PowerBLAST (Zhang and Madden, 1997) was used in an integrated fashion in the prediction of gene structure (Kuehl et al., 1999). Another integrated approach to this approach lies in ‘‘workbenches’’ such as Genotator, which allow users to simultaneously run a number of prediction methods and homology searches, as well as providing the ability to annotate sequence features through a graphical user interface (Harris, 1997). A combinatorial method developed at the National Human Genome Research Institute combines most of the methods described in this chapter into a single tool. This tool, named GeneMachine, allows users to query multiple exon and gene prediction programs in an automated fashion (Makalowska et al., 1999). A suite of Perl modules are used to run MZEF, GENSCAN, GRAIL2, FGENES, and BLAST. RepeatMasker and Sputnik are used to find repeats within the query sequence. Once GeneMachine is run, a file is written that can subsequently be opened using NCBI Sequin, in essence using Sequin as a workbench and graphical viewer. Using Sequin also has the advantage of presenting the results to the user in a familiar format— basically the same format that is used in Entrez for graphical views. The main feature of GeneMachine is that the process is fully automated; the user is only required to launch GeneMachine and then open the resulting file with NCBI Sequin. GeneMachine also does not require users to install local copies of the prediction programs, enabling users to pass-off to Web interfaces instead; although this reduces some of the overhead of maintaining the program, it does result in slower performance. Annotations can then be made to these results before submission to GenBank, thereby increasing the intrinsic value of these data. A sample of the output obtained using GeneMachine is shown in Figure 10.9, and more details on GeneMachine can be found on the NHGRI Web site. The ultimate solution to the gene identification problem lies in the advancement of the Human Genome Project and other sequencing projects. As more and more gene structures are elucidated, this biological information can in turn be used to develop better methods, yielding more accurate predictions. Although the promise of such computational methods may not be completely fulfilled before the Human Genome Project reaches completion, the information learned from this effort will play a major role in facilitating similar efforts targeting other model genomes.

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Figure 10.9. Annotated output from GeneMachine showing the results of multiple gene prediction program runs. NCBI Sequin is used at the viewer. The top of the output shows the results from various BLAST runs (BLASTN vs. dbEST, BLASTN vs. nr, and BLASTX vs. SWISSPROT). Toward the bottom of the window are shown the results from the predictive methods (FGENES, GENSCAN, MZEF, and GRAIL 2). Annotations indicating the strength of the prediction are preserved and shown wherever possible within the viewer. Putative regions of high interest would be areas where hits from the BLAST runs line up with exon predictions from the gene prediction programs. (See color plate.)

INTERNET RESOURCES FOR TOPICS PRESENTED IN CHAPTER 10 Banbury Cross FGENEH GeneID GeneMachine GeneParser GENSCAN Genotator GRAIL GRAIL-EXP HMMgene MZEF

http://igs-server.cnrs-mrs.fr/igs/banbury http://genomic.sanger.ac.uk/gf/gf.shtml http://www1.imim.es/geneid.html http://genome.nhgri.nih.gov/genemachine http://beagle.colorado.edu/~ eesnyder/GeneParser.htl http://genes.mit.edu/GENSCAN.html http://www.fruitfly.org/~ nomi/genotator/ http://compbio.ornl.gov/tools/index.shtml http://compbio.ornl.gov/grailexp/ http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/HMMgene/ http://www.cshl.org/genefinder

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PROCRUSTES RepeatMasker Sputnik

http://www-hto.usc.edu/software/procrustes http://ftp.genome.washington.edu/RM/RepeatMasker.html http://rast.abajian.com/sputnik/

PROBLEM SET An anonymous sequence from 18q requiring computational analysis is posted on the book’s Web site (http://www.wiley.com/bioinformatics). To gain a better appreciation for the relative performance of the methods discussed in this chapter and how the results may vary between methods, use FGENES, GENSCAN, and HMMgene to answer each of the following questions. 1. How many exons are in the unknown sequence? 2. What are the start and stop points for each of these exons? 3. Which strand (forward or reverse) are the putative exons found on? 4. Are there any unique features present, like polyA tracts? Where are they located? 5. Can any protein translations be derived from the sequence? What is the length (in amino acids) of these translations? 6. For HMMgene only, can alternative translations be computed for this particular DNA sequence? If so, give the number of exons and the length of the coding region (CDS) for each possible alternative prediction. Note on which strand the alternative translations are found.

REFERENCES Altschul, S. F., Madden, T. L., Schaffer, A. A., Zhang, J., Zhang, Z., Miller, W., and Lipman, D. J. (1997). Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucleic Acids Res. 25, 3389–3402. Burge, C., and Karlin, S. (1997). Prediction of complete gene structures in human genomic DNA. J. Mol. Biol. 268, 78–94. Burge, C. B., and Karlin, S. (1998). Finding the genes in genomic DNA. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 8, 346–354. Burset, M., and Guigo´, R. (1996). Evaluation of gene structure prediction programs. Genomics 34, 353–367. Chothia, C., and Lesk, A. M. (1986). The relation between the divergence of sequence and structure in proteins. EMBO J 5, 823–826. Claverie, J. M. (1998). Computational methods for exon detection. Mol. Biotechnol. 10, 27– 48. Claverie, J. M. (1997a). Computational methods for the identification of genes in vertebrate genomic sequences. Hum. Mol. Genet. 6, 1735–1744. Claverie, J. M. (1997b). Exon detection by similarity searches. Methods Mol. Biol. 68, 283– 313. Everett, L. A., Glaser, B., Beck, J. C., Idol, J. R., Buchs, A., Heyman, M., Adawi, F., Hazani, E., Nassir, E., Baxevanis, A. D., Sheffield, V. C., and Green, E. D. (1997). Pendred syndrome is caused by mutations in a putative sulphate transporter gene (PDS). Nat. Genet. 17, 411–422.

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Gelfand, M. S., Mironov, A. A., and Pevzner, P. A. (1996). Gene recognition via spliced sequence alignment. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93, 9061–9066. Guigo´, R. (1997). Computational gene identification. J. Mol. Med. 75, 389–393. Guigo´, R., Knudsen, S., Drake, N., and Smith, T. (1992). Prediction of gene structure. J. Mol. Biol. 226, 141–157. Harris, N. L. (1997). Genotator: a workbench for sequence annotation. Genome Res. 7, 754– 762. Krogh, A. (1997). Two methods for improving performance of an HMM and their application for gene finding. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology, Gaasterland, T., Karp, P., Karplus, K., Ouzounis, C., Sander, C., and Valencia, A., eds. (AAAI Press, Menlo Park, CA), p. 179–186. Kuehl, P., Weisemann, J., Touchman, J., Green, E., and Boguski, M. (1999). An effective approach for analyzing ‘‘prefinished genomic sequence data. Genome Res. 9, 189–194. Liu, A. Y., Torchia, B. S., Migeon, B. R., and Siliciano, R. F. (1997). The human NTT gene: identification of a novel 17-kb noncoding nuclear RNA expressed in activated CD4⫹ T cells. Genomics 39, 171–184. Makalowska, I., Ryan, J. F., and Baxevanis, A. D. (1999) GeneMachine: A Unified Solution for Performing Content-Based, Site-Based, and Comparative Gene Prediction Methods. 12th Cold Spring Harbor Meeting on Genome Mapping, Sequencing, and Biology, Cold Spring Harbor, NY. Mural, R. J., Einstein, J. R., Guan, X., Mann, R. C., and Uberbacher, E. C. (1992). An artificial intelligence approach to DNA sequence feature recognition. Trends Biotech. 10, 67–69. Pearson, W. R., Wood, T., Zhang, Z., and Miller, W. (1997). Comparison of DNA sequences with protein sequences. Genomics 46, 24–36. Rogic, S., Mackworth, A., and Ouellette, B. F. F. (2001). Evaluation of Gene-Finding Programs. In press. Snyder, E. E., and Stormo, G. D. (1993). Identification of coding regions in genomic DNA sequences: an application of dynamic programming and neural networks. Nucleic Acids Res. 21, 607–613. Snyder, E. E., and Stormo, G. D. (1997). Identifying genes in genomic DNA sequences. In DNA and Protein Sequence Analysis, M. J. Bishop and C. J. Rawlings, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press), p. 209–224. Solovyev, V. V., Salamov, A. A., and Lawrence, C. B. (1995). Identification of human gene structure using linear discriminant functions and dynamic programming. Ismb 3, 367–375. Solovyev, V. V., Salamov, A. A., and Lawrence, C. B. (1994a). Predicting internal exons by oligonucleotide composition and discriminant analysis of spliceable open reading frames. Nucleic Acids Res. 22, 5156–5163. Solovyev, V. V., Salamov, A. A., and Lawrence, C. B. (1994b). The prediction of human exons by oligonucleotide composition and discriminant analysis of spliceable open reading frames. Ismb 2, 354–362. Uberbacher, E. C., and Mural, R. J. (1991). Locating protein-coding regions in human DNA sequences by a multiple sensor-neural network approach. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88, 11261–11265. Wevrick, R., Kerns, J. A., and Francke, U. (1996). The IPW gene is imprinted and is not expressed in the Prader-Willi syndrome. Acta Genet. Med. Gemellol. 45, 191–197. Zhang, J., and Madden, T. L. (1997). PowerBLAST: a new network BLAST application for interactive or automated sequence analysis and annotation. Genome Res. 7, 649–656.

11 PREDICTIVE METHODS USING PROTEIN SEQUENCES Sharmila Banerjee-Basu Genome Technology Branch National Human Genome Research Institute National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland

Andreas D. Baxevanis Genome Technology Branch National Human Genome Research Institute National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland

The discussions of databases and information retrieval in earlier chapters of this book document the tremendous explosion in the amount of sequence information available in a variety of public databases. As we have already seen with nucleotide sequences, all protein sequences, whether determined directly or through the translation of an open reading frame in a nucleotide sequence, contain intrinsic information of value in determining their structure or function. Unfortunately, experiments aimed at extracting such information cannot keep pace with the rate at which raw sequence data are being produced. Techniques such as circular dichroism spectroscopy, optical rotatory dispersion, X-ray crystallography, and nuclear magnetic resonance are extremely powerful in determining structural features, but their execution requires many hours of highly skilled, technically demanding work. The gap in information becomes obvious in comparisons of the size of the protein sequence and structure databases; as of this writing, there were 87,143 protein entries (Release 39.0) in SWISS-PROT but only 12,624 structure entries (July, 2000) in PDB. Attempts to close the gap 253

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center around theoretical approaches for structure and function prediction. These methods can provide insights as to the properties of a protein in the absence of biochemical data. This chapter focuses on computational techniques that allow for biological discovery based on the protein sequence itself or on their comparison to protein families. Unlike nucleotide sequences, which are composed of four bases that are chemically rather similar (yet distinct), the alphabet of 20 amino acids found in proteins allows for much greater diversity of structure and function, primarily because the differences in the chemical makeup of these residues are more pronounced. Each residue can influence the overall physical properties of the protein because these amino acids are basic or acidic, hydrophobic or hydrophilic, and have straight chains, branched chains, or are aromatic. Thus, each residue has certain propensities to form structures of different types in the context of a protein domain. These properties, of course, are the basis for one of the central tenets of biochemistry: that sequence specifies conformation (Anfinsen et al., 1961). The major precaution with respect to these or any other predictive techniques is that, regardless of the method, the results are predictions. Different methods, using different algorithms, may or may not produce different results, and it is important to understand how a particular predictive method works rather than just approaching the algorithm as a ‘‘black box’’: one method may be appropriate in a particular case but totally inappropriate in another. Even so, the potential for a powerful synergy exists: proper use of these techniques along with primary biochemical data can provide valuable insights into protein structure and function.

PROTEIN IDENTITY BASED ON COMPOSITION The physical and chemical properties of each of the 20 amino acids are fairly well understood, and a number of useful computational tools have been developed for making predictions regarding the identification of unknown proteins based on these properties (and vice versa). Many of these tools are available through the ExPASy server at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (Appel et al., 1994). The focus of the ExPASy tools is twofold: to assist in the analysis and identification of unknown proteins isolated through two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, as well as to predict basic physical properties of a known protein. These tools capitalize on the curated annotations in the SWISS-PROT database in making their predictions. Although calculations such as these are useful in electrophoretic analysis, they can be very valuable in any number of experimental areas, particularly in chromatographic and sedimentation studies. In this and the following section, tools in the ExPASy suite are identified, but the ensuing discussion also includes a number of useful programs made available by other groups. Internet resources related to these and other tools discussed in this chapter are listed at the end of the chapter.

AACompIdent and AACompSim (ExPASy) Rather than using an amino acid sequence to search SWISS-PROT, AACompIdent uses the amino acid composition of an unknown protein to identify known proteins of the same composition (Wilkins et al., 1996). As inputs, the program requires the desired amino acid composition, the isoelectric point (pI) and molecular weight of

PROTEIN IDENTITY BASED ON COMPOSITION

the protein (if known), the appropriate taxonomic class, and any special keywords. In addition, the user must select from one of six amino acid ‘‘constellations,’’ which influence how the analysis is performed; for example, certain constellations may combine residues like Asp/Asn (D/N) and Gln/Glu (Q/E) into Asx (B) and Glx (Z), or certain residues may be eliminated from the analysis altogether. For each sequence in the database, the algorithm computes a score based on the difference in compositions between the sequence and the query composition. The results, returned by E-mail, are organized as three ranked lists: • a list based on all proteins from the specified taxonomic class without taking pI or molecular weight into account; • a list based on all proteins regardless of taxonomic class without taking pI or molecular weight into account; and • a list based on the specified taxonomic class that does take pI and molecular weight into account. Because the computed scores are a difference measure, a score of zero implies that there is exact correspondence between the query composition and that sequence entry. AACompSim, a variant of AACompIdent, performs a similar type of analysis, but, rather than using an experimentally derived amino acid composition as the basis for searches, the sequence of a SWISS-PROT protein is used instead (Wilkins et al., 1996). A theoretical pI and molecular weight are computed before computation of the difference scores using Compute pI/MW (see below). It has been documented that amino acid composition across species boundaries is well conserved (Cordwell et al., 1995) and that, by considering amino acid composition, investigators can detect weak similarities between proteins whose sequence identity falls below 25% (Hobohm and Sander, 1995). Thus the consideration of composition in addition to the ability to perform ‘‘traditional’’ database searches may provide additional insight into the relationships between proteins.

PROPSEARCH Along the same lines as AACompSim, PROPSEARCH uses the amino acid composition of a protein to detect weak relationships between proteins, and the authors have demonstrated that this technique can be used to easily discern members of the same protein family (Hobohm and Sander, 1995). However, this technique is more robust than AACompSim in that 144 different physical properties are used in performing the analysis, among which are molecular weight, the content of bulky residues, average hydrophobicity, and average charge. This collection of physical properties is called the query vector, and it is compared against the same type of vector precomputed for every sequence in the target databases (SWISS-PROT and PIR). Having this ‘‘database of vectors’’ calculated in advance vastly improves the processing time for a query. The input to the PROPSEARCH Web server is just the query sequence, and an example of the program output is shown in Figure 11.1. Here, the sequence of human autoantigen NOR-90 was used as the input query. The results are ranked by a distance score, and this score represents the likelihood that the query sequence and new

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Figure 11.1. Results of a PROPSEARCH database query based on amino acid composition. The input sequence used was that of the human autoantigen NOR-90. Explanatory material and a histogram of distance scores against the entire target database have been removed for brevity. The columns in the table give the rank of the hit based on the distance score, the SWISS-PROT or PIR identifier, the distance score, the length of the overlap between the query and subject, the positions of the overlap (from POS1 to POS2), the calculated pI, and the definition line for the found sequence.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES BASED ON SEQUENCE

sequences found through PROPSEARCH belong to the same family, thereby implying common function in most cases. A distance score of 10 or below indicates that there is a better than 87% chance that there is similarity between the two proteins. A score below 8.7 increases the reliability to 94%, and a score below 7.5 increases the reliability to 99.6%. Examination of the results showed NOR-90 to be similar to a number of nucleolar transcription factors, protein kinases, a retinoblastoma-binding protein, the actin-binding protein radixin, and RalBP1, a putative GTPase target. None of these hits would necessarily be expected, since the functions of these proteins are dissimilar; however, a good number of these are DNA-binding proteins, opening the possibility that a very similar domain is being used in alternative functional contexts. At the very least, a BLASTP search would be necessary to both verify the results and identify critical residues.

MOWSE The Molecular Weight Search (MOWSE) algorithm capitalizes on information obtained through mass spectrometric (MS) techniques (Pappin et al., 1993). With the use of both the molecular weights of intact proteins and those resulting from digestion of the same proteins with specific proteases, an unknown protein can be unambiguously identified given the results of several experimental determinations. This approach substantially cuts down on experimental time, since the unknown protein does not have to be sequenced in whole or in part. The MOWSE Web front end requires the molecular weight of the starting sequence and the reagent used, as well as the resultant masses and composition of the peptides generated by the reagent. A tolerance value may be specified, indicating the error allowed in the accuracy of the determined fragment masses. Calculations are based on information contained in the OWL nonredundant protein sequence database (Akrigg et al., 1988). Scoring is based on how often a fragment molecular weight occurs in proteins within a given range of molecular weights, and the output is returned as a ranked list of the top 30 scores, with the OWL entry name, matching peptide sequences, and other statistical information. Simulation studies produced an accuracy rate of 99% using five or fewer input peptide weights.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES BASED ON SEQUENCE Compute pI/MW and ProtParam (ExPASy) Compute pI/MW is a tool that calculates the isoelectric point and molecular weight of an input sequence. Determination of pI is based on pK values, as described in an earlier study on protein migration in denaturing conditions at neutral to acidic pH (Bjellqvist et al., 1993). Because of this, the authors caution that pI values determined for basic proteins may not be accurate. Molecular weights are calculated by the addition of the average isotopic mass of each amino acid in the sequence plus that of one water molecule. The sequence can be furnished by the user in FASTA format, or a SWISS-PROT identifier or accession number can be specified. If a sequence is furnished, the tool automatically computes the pI and molecular weight for the entire length of the sequence. If a SWISS-PROT identifier is given, the definition and organism lines of the entry are shown, and the user may specify a range of amino

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acids so that the computation is done on a fragment rather than on the entire protein. ProtParam takes this process one step further. Based on the input sequence, ProtParam calculates the molecular weight, isoelectric point, overall amino acid composition, a theoretical extinction coefficient (Gill and von Hippel, 1989), aliphatic index (Ikai, 1980), the protein’s grand average of hydrophobicity (GRAVY) value (Kyte and Doolittle, 1982), and other basic physicochemical parameters. Although this might seem to be a very simple program, one can begin to speculate about the cellular localization of the protein; for example, a basic protein with a high proportion of lysine and arginine residues may well be a DNA-binding protein.

PeptideMass (ExPASy) Designed for use in peptide mapping experiments, PeptideMass determines the cleavage products of a protein after exposure to a given protease or chemical reagent (Wilkins et al., 1997). The enzymes and reagents available for cleavage through PeptideMass are trypsin, chymotrypsin, LysC, cyanogen bromide, ArgC, AspN, and GluC (bicarbonate or phosphate). Cysteines and methionines can be modified before the calculation of the molecular weight of the resultant peptides. By furnishing a SWISS-PROT identifier rather than pasting in a raw sequence, PeptideMass is able to use information within the SWISS-PROT annotation to improve the calculations, such as removing signal sequences or including known posttranslational modifications before cleavage. The results are returned in tabular format, giving a theoretical pI and molecular weight for the starting protein and then the mass, position, modified masses, information on variants from SWISS-PROT, and the sequence of the peptide fragments.

TGREASE TGREASE calculates the hydrophobicity of a protein along its length (Kyte and Doolittle, 1982). Inherent in each of the 20 amino acids is its hydrophobicity: the relative propensity of the acid to bury itself in the core of a protein and away from surrounding water molecules. This tendency, coupled with steric and other considerations, influences how a protein ultimately folds into its final three-dimensional conformation. As such, TGREASE finds application in the determination of putative transmembrane sequences as well as the prediction of buried regions of globular proteins. TGREASE is part of the FASTA suite of programs available from the University of Virginia and runs as a stand-alone application that can be downloaded and run on either Macintosh or DOS-based computers. The method relies on a hydropathy scale, in which each amino acid is assigned a score reflecting its relative hydrophobicity based on a number of physical characteristics (e.g., solubility, the free energy of transfer through a water-vapor phase transition, etc.). Amino acids with higher, positive scores are more hydrophobic; those with more negative scores are more hydrophilic. A moving average, or hydropathic index, is then calculated across the protein. The window length is adjustable, with a span of 7–11 residues recommended to minimize noise and maximize information content. The results are then plotted as hydropathic index versus residue number. The sequence for the human interleukin-8 receptor B was used to generate a TGREASE plot, as shown in Figure 11.2. Correspondence between the peaks and the actual location of the transmembrane segments, although not exact, is fairly good;

M O T I F S A N D P AT T E R N S

Figure 11.2. Results of a Kyte-Doolittle hydropathy determination using TGREASE. The input sequence was of the high affinity interleukin-8 receptor B from human. Default window lengths were used. The thick, horizontal bars across the bottom of the figure were added manually and represent the positions of the seven transmembrane regions of IL-8RB, as given in the SWISS-PROT entry for this protein (P25025).

keep in mind that the method is predicting all hydrophobic regions, not just those located in transmembrane regions. The specific detection of transmembrane regions is discussed further below.

SAPS The Statistical Analysis of Protein Sequences (SAPS) algorithm provides extensive statistical information for any given query sequence (Brendel et al., 1992). When a protein sequence is submitted via the SAPS Web interface, the server returns a large amount of physical and chemical information on the protein, based solely on what can be inferred from its sequence. The output begins with a composition analysis, with counts of amino acids by type. This is followed by a charge distribution analysis, including the locations of positively or negatively charged clusters, high-scoring charged and uncharged segments, and charge runs and patterns. The final sections present information on high-scoring hydrophobic and transmembrane segments, repetitive structures, and multiplets, as well as a periodicity analysis.

MOTIFS AND PATTERNS In Chapter 8, the idea of direct sequence comparison was presented, where BLAST searches are performed to identify sequences in the public databases that are similar to a query sequence of interest. Often, this direct comparison may not yield any interesting results or may not yield any results at all. However, there may be very weak sequence determinants that are present that will allow the query sequence to be associated with a family of sequences. By the same token, a family of sequences can be used to identify new, distantly related members of the same protein family; an example of this is PSI-BLAST, discussed in Chapter 8.

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Before discussing two of the methods that capitalize on such an approach, several terms have to be defined. The first is the concept of profiles. Profiles are, quite simply, a numerical representation of a multiple sequence alignment, much like the multiple sequence alignments derived from the methods discussed in Chapter 9. Imbedded within a multiple sequence alignment is intrinsic sequence information that represents the common characteristics of that particular collection of sequences, frequently a protein family. By using a profile, one is able to use these imbedded, common characteristics to find similarities between sequences with little or no absolute sequence identity, allowing for the identification and analysis of distantly related proteins. Profiles are constructed by taking a multiple sequence alignment representing a protein family and then asking a series of questions: • • • •

What residues are seen at each position of the alignment? How often does a particular residue appear at each position of the alignment? Are there positions that show absolute conservation? Can gaps be introduced anywhere in the alignment?

Once those questions are answered, a position-specific scoring table (PSST) is constructed, and the numbers in the table now represent the multiple sequence alignment. The numbers within the PSST reflect the probability of any given amino acid occurring at each position. It also reflects the effect of a conservative or nonconservative substitution at each position in the alignment, much like a PAM or BLOSUM matrix does. This PSST can now be used for comparison against single sequences. The second term requiring definition is pattern or signature. A signature also represents the common characteristics of a protein family (or a multiple sequence alignment) but does not contain any weighting information whatsoever—it simply provides a shorthand notation for what residues can be present at any given position. For example, the signature [IV] - G - x - G - T -[LIVMF] - x(2) - [GS] would be read as follows: the first position could contain either an isoleucine or a valine, the second position could contain only a glycine, and so on. An x means that any residue can appear at that position. The x(2) simply means that two positions can be occupied by any amino acid, the number just reflecting the length of the nonspecific run.

ProfileScan Based on the classic Gribskov method of profile analysis (Gribskov et al., 1987, 1988), ProfileScan uses a method called pfscan to find similarities between a protein or nucleic acid query sequence and a profile library (Lu¨thy et al., 1994). In this case, three profile libraries are available for searching. First is PROSITE, an ExPASy database that catalogs biologically significant sites through the use of motif and sequence profiles and patterns (Hofmann, 1999). Second is Pfam, which is a collection of protein domain families that differ from most such collections in one important aspect: the initial alignment of the protein domains is done by hand, rather than by depending on automated methods. As such, Pfam contains slightly over 500 en-

M O T I F S A N D P AT T E R N S

tries, but the entries are potentially of higher quality. The third profile set is referred to as the Gribskov collection. Searches against any of these collections can be done through the ProfileScan Web page, which simply requires either an input sequence in plain text format, or an identifier such as a SWISS-PROT ID. The user can select the sensitivity of the search, returning either significant matches only or all matches, including borderline cases. To illustrate the output format, the sequence of a human heat-shock-induced protein was submitted to the server for searching against PROSITE profiles only. normalized raw from to Profile | Description 355.9801 41556 pos. 6 - 612 PF00012 | HSP70 Heat shock hsp70 proteins

Although the actual PROSITE entry returned is no great surprise, the output contains scores that are worth understanding. The raw score is the actual score calculated from the scoring matrix used during the search. The more informative number is the normalized or N-score. The N-score formally represents the number of matches one would expect in a database of given size. Basically, the larger the N-score the lower the probability that the hit occurred by chance. In the example, the N-score of 355 translates to 1.94 × 10⫺349 expected chance matches when normalized against SWISS-PROT—an extremely low probability of this being a false positive. The from and to numbers simply show the positions of the overlap between the query and the matching profile.

BLOCKS The BLOCKS database utilizes the concept of blocks to identify a family of proteins, rather than relying on the individual sequences themselves (Henikoff and Henikoff, 1996). The idea of a block is derived from the more familiar notion of a motif, which usually refers to a conserved stretch of amino acids that confer a specific function or structure to a protein. When these individual motifs from proteins in the same family are aligned without introducing gaps, the result is a block, with the term ‘‘block’’ referring to the alignment, not the individual sequences themselves. Obviously, an individual protein can contain one or more blocks, corresponding to each of its functional or structural motifs. The BLOCKS database itself is derived from the entries in PROSITE. When a BLOCKS search is performed using a sequence of interest, the query sequence is aligned against all the blocks in the database at all possible positions. For each alignment, a score is calculated using a position-specific scoring matrix, and results of the best matches are returned to the user. Searches can be performed optionally against the PRINTS database, which includes information on more than 300 families that do not have corresponding entries in the BLOCKS database. To ensure complete coverage, it is recommended that both databases be searched. BLOCKS searches can be performed using the BLOCKS Web site at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. The Web site is straightforward, allowing both sequence-based and keyword-based searches to be performed. If a DNA sequence is used as the input, users can specify which genetic code to use and which strand to search. Regardless of whether the query is performed via a sequence or via keywords, a successful search will return the relevant block. An example is shown in Figure 11.3. In this entry (for a nuclear hormone receptor called a steroid finger),

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Figure 11.3. Structure of a typical BLOCKS entry. This is part of the entry for one block associated with steroid fingers. The structure of the entry is discussed in the text.

the header lines marked ID, AC, and DE give, in order, a short description of the family represented by this block, the BLOCKS database accession number, and a longer description of the family. The BL line gives information regarding the original sequence motif that was used to construct this particular block. The width and seqs parameters show how wide the block is, in residues, and how many sequences are in the block, respectively. Some information then follows regarding the statistical validity and the strength of the construct. Finally, a list of sequences is presented, showing only the part of the sequence corresponding to this particular motif. Each line begins with the SWISS-PROT accession number for the sequence, the number of the first residue shown based on the entire sequence, the sequence itself, and a position-based sequence weight. These values are scaled, with 100 representing the sequence that is most distant from the group. Notice that there are blank lines between some of the sequences; parts of the overall alignment are clustered, and, in each cluster, 80% of the sequence residues are identical.

CDD Recently, NCBI introduced a new search service aimed at identifying conserved domains within a protein sequence. The source database for these searches is called the Conserved Domain Database or CDD. This is a secondary database, with entries

SECONDARY STRUCTURE AND FOLDING CLASSES

derived from both Pfam (described above) and SMART (Simple Modular Architecture Research Tool). SMART can be used to identify genetically mobile domains and analyze domain architectures and is discussed in greater detail within the context of comparative genomics in Chapter 15. The actual search is performed using reverse position-specific BLAST (RPS-BLAST), which uses the query sequence to search a database of precalculated PSSTs. The CDD interface is simple, providing a box for the input sequence (alternatively, an accession number can be specified) and a pull-down menu for selecting the target database. If conserved domains are identified within the input sequence, a graphic is returned showing the position of each conserved domain, followed by the actual alignment of the query sequence to the target domain as generated by RPSBLAST. In these alignments, the default view shows identical residues in red, whereas conservative substitutions are shown in blue; users can also select from a variety of representations, including the traditional BLAST-style alignment display. Hyperlinks are provided back to the source databases, providing more information on that particular domain. This ‘‘CD Summary’’ page gives the underlying source database information, references, the taxonomy spanned by this entry, and a sequence entry representative of the group. In the lower part of the page, the user can construct an alignment of sequences of interest from the group; alternatively, the user can allow the computer to select the top-ranked sequences or a subset of sequences that are most diverse within the group. If a three-dimensional structure corresponding to the CD is available, it can be viewed directly using Cn3D (see Chapter 5). Clicking on the CD link next to any of the entries on the CD Summary page will, in essence, start the whole process over again, using that sequence to perform a new RPSBLAST search against CDD.

SECONDARY STRUCTURE AND FOLDING CLASSES One of the first steps in the analysis of a newly discovered protein or gene product of unknown function is to perform a BLAST or other similar search against the public databases. However, such a search might not produce a match against a known protein; if there is a statistically significant hit, there may not be any information in the sequence record regarding the secondary structure of the protein, information that is very important in the rational design of biochemical experiments. In the absence of ‘‘known’’ information, there are methods available for predicting the ability of a sequence to form ␣-helices and ␤-strands. These methods rely on observations made from groups of proteins whose three-dimensional structure has been experimentally determined. A brief review of secondary structure and folding classes is warranted before the techniques themselves are discussed. As already alluded to, a significant number of amino acids have hydrophobic side chains, whereas the main chain, or backbone, is hydrophilic. The required balance between these two seemingly opposing forces is accomplished through the formation of discrete secondary structural elements, first described by Linus Pauling and colleagues in 1951 (Pauling and Corey, 1951). An ␣-helix is a corkscrew-type structure with the main chain forming the backbone and the side chains of the amino acids projecting outward from the helix. The backbone is stabilized by the formation of hydrogen bonds between the CO group of each

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amino acid and the NH group of the residue four positions C-terminal (n + 4), creating a tight, rodlike structure. Some residues form ␣-helices better than others; alanine, glutamine, leucine, and methionine are commonly found in ␣-helices, whereas proline, glycine, tyrosine, and serine usually are not. Proline is commonly thought of as a helix breaker because its bulky ring structure disrupts the formation of n + 4 hydrogen bonds. In contrast, the ␤-strand is a much more extended structure. Rather than hydrogen bonds forming within the secondary structural unit itself, stabilization occurs through bonding with one or more adjacent ␤-strands. The overall structure formed through the interaction of these individual ␤-strands is known as a ␤-pleated sheet. These sheets can be parallel or antiparallel, depending on the orientation of the Nand C-terminal ends of each component ␤-strand. A variant of the ␤-sheet is the ␤turn; in this structure the polypeptide chain makes a sharp, hairpin bend, producing an antiparallel ␤-sheet in the process. In 1976, Levitt and Chothia proposed a classification system based on the order of secondary structural elements within a protein (Levitt and Chothia, 1976). Quite simply, an ␣-structure is made up primarily from ␣-helices, and a ␤-structure is made up of primarily ␤-strands. Myoglobin is the classic example of a protein composed entirely of ␣-helices, falling into the ␣ class of structures (Takano, 1977). Plastocyanin is a good example of the ␤ class, where the hydrogen-bonding pattern between eight ␤-strands form a compact, barrel-like structure (Guss and Freeman, 1983). The combination class, ␣/␤, is made up of primarily ␤-strands alternating with ␣-helices. Flavodoxin is a good example of an ␣/␤-protein; its ␤-strands form a central ␤-sheet, which is surrounded by ␣-helices (Burnett et al., 1974). Predictive methods aimed at extracting secondary structural information from the linear primary sequence make extensive use of neural networks, traditionally used for analysis of patterns and trends. Basically, a neural network provides computational processes the ability to ‘‘learn’’ in an attempt to approximate human learning versus following instructions blindly in a sequential manner. Every neural network has an input layer and an output layer. In the case of secondary structure prediction, the input layer would be information from the sequence itself, and the output layer would be the probabilities of whether a particular residue could form a particular structure. Between the input and output layers would be one or more hidden layers where the actual ‘‘learning’’ would take place. This is accomplished by providing a training data set for the network. Here, an appropriate training set would be all sequences for which three-dimensional structures have been deduced. The network can process this information to look for what are possibly weak relationships between an amino acid sequence and the structures they can form in a particular context. A more complete discussion of neural networks as applied to secondary structure prediction can be found in Kneller et al. (1990).

nnpredict The nnpredict algorithm uses a two-layer, feed-forward neural network to assign the predicted type for each residue (Kneller et al., 1990). In making the predictions, the server uses a FASTA format file with the sequence in either one-letter or three-letter code, as well as the folding class of the protein (␣, ␤, or ␣/␤). Residues are classified


as being within an ␣-helix (H), a ␤-strand (E), or neither (—). If no prediction can be made for a given residue, a question mark (?) is returned to indicate that an assignment cannot be made with confidence. If no information is available regarding the folding class, the prediction can be made without a folding class being specified; this is the default. For the best-case prediction, the accuracy rate of nnpredict is reported as being over 65%. Sequences are submitted to nnpredict by either sending an E-mail message to [email protected] or by using the Web-based submission form. With the use of flavodoxin as an example, the format of the E-mail message would be as follows: option: a/b >flavodoxin - Anacystis nidulans AKIGLFYGTQTGVTQTIAESIQQEFGGESIVDLNDIANADASDLNAYDYLIIGCPTWNVGELQSDWEGIY DDLDSVNFQGKKVAYFGAGDQVGYSDNFQDAMGILEEKISSLGSQTVGYWPIEGYDFNESKAVRNNQFVG LAIDEDNQPDLTKNRIKTWVSQLKSEFGL

The Option line specifies the folding class of the protein: n uses no folding class for the prediction, a specifies ␣, b specifies ␤, and a/b specifies ␣/␤. Only one sequence may be submitted per E-mail message. The results returned by the server are shown in modified form in Figure 11.4.

PredictProtein PredictProtein (Rost et al., 1994) uses a slightly different approach in making its predictions. First, the protein sequence is used as a query against SWISS-PROT to find similar sequences. When similar sequences are found, an algorithm called MaxHom is used to generate a profile-based multiple sequence alignment (Sander and Schneider, 1991). MaxHom uses an iterative method to construct the alignment: After the first search of SWISS-PROT, all found sequences are aligned against the query sequence and a profile is calculated for the alignment. The profile is then used to search SWISS-PROT again to locate new, matching sequences. The multiple alignment generated by MaxHom is subsequently fed into a neural network for prediction by one of a suite of methods collectively known as PHD (Rost, 1996). PHDsec, the method in this suite used for secondary structure prediction, not only assigns each residue to a secondary structure type, it provides statistics indicating the confidence of the prediction at each position in the sequence. The method produces an average accuracy of better than 72%; the best-case residue predictions have an accuracy rate of over 90%. Sequences are submitted to PredictProtein either by sending an E-mail message or by using a Web front end. Several options are available for sequence submission; the query sequences can be submitted as single-letter amino acid code or by its SWISS-PROT identifier. In addition, a multiple sequence alignment in FASTA format or as a PIR alignment can also be submitted for secondary structure prediction. The input message, sent to [email protected], takes the following form:

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assumed to be random coil. Correctly assigned residues are shown in inverse type. The methods used are listed along the left side of the alignment and are described in the text. At the bottom of the figure is the secondary structure assignment given in the PDB file for flavodoxin (1OFV, Smith et al., 1983).

Figure 11.4. Comparison of secondary structure predictions by various methods. The sequence of flavodoxin was used as the query and is shown on the first line of the alignment. For each prediction, H denotes an ␣-helix, E a ␤-strand, and T a ␤-turn; all other positions are


Joe Buzzcut National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH [email protected] do NOT align # FASTA list homeodomain proteins >ANTP ---KRGRQTYTRYQTLELEKEFHFNRYLTRRRRIEIAHALSLTERQIKIWFQNRRMKWKK >HDD MDEKRPRTAFSSEQLARLKREFNENRYLTERRRQQLSSELGLNEAQIKIWFQNKRAKIKK >DLX -KIRKPRTIYSSLQLQALNHRFQQTQYLALPERAELAASLGLTQTQVKIWFQNKRSKFKK >FTT ---RKRRVLFSQAQVYELERRFKQQKYLSAPEREHLASMIHLTPTQVKIWFQNHRYKMKR >Pax6 --LQRNRTSFTQEQIEALEKEFERTHYPDVFARERLAAKIDLPEARIQVWFSNRRAKWRR

Above is an example of a FASTA-formatted multiple sequence alignment of homeodomain proteins submitted for secondary structure prediction. After the name, affiliation, and address lines, the # sign signals to the server that a sequence in oneletter code follows. The sequence format is essentially FASTA, except that blanks are not allowed. For this alignment, the phrase do NOT align before the line starting with # assures that the alignment will not be realigned. Nothing is allowed to follow the sequence. The output sent as an E-mail message is quite copious but contains a large amount of pertinent information. The results can also be retrieved from an ftp site by adding a qualifier return no mail in any line before the line starting with #. This might be a useful feature for those E-mail services that have difficulty handling very large output files. The format for the output file can be plain text or HTML files with or without PHD graphics. The results of the MaxHom search are returned, complete with a multiple alignment that may be of use in further study, such as profile searches or phylogenetic studies. If the submitted sequence has a known homolog in PDB, the PDB identifiers are furnished. Information follows on the method itself and then the actual prediction will follow. In a recent release, the output can also be customized by specifying available options. Unlike nnpredict, PredictProtein returns a ‘‘reliability index of prediction’’ for each position ranging from 0 to 9, with 9 being the maximum confidence that a secondary structure assignment has been made correctly. The results returned by the server for this particular sequence, as compared with those obtained by other methods, are shown in modified form in Figure 11.4.

PREDATOR The PREDATOR secondary structure prediction algorithm is based on recognition of potentially hydrogen-bonded residues in the amino acid sequence (Frishman and Argos, 1997). It uses database-derived statistics on residue-type occurrences in different classes of local hydrogen-bonded structures. The novel feature of this method is its reliance on local pairwise alignment of the sequence to be predicted between each related sequence. The input for this program can be a single sequence or a set of unaligned, related sequences. Sequences can be submitted to the PREDATOR server either by sending an E-mail message to [email protected] or by

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using a Web front end. The input sequences can be either FASTA, MSF, or CLUSTAL format. The mean prediction accuracy of PREDATOR in three structural states is 68% for a single sequence and 75% for a set of related sequences.

PSIPRED The PSIPRED method, developed at the University of Warwick, UK, uses the knowledge inferred from PSI-BLAST (Altschul et al., 1997; cf. Chapter 8) searches of the input sequence to perform predictions. PSIPRED uses two feedforward neural networks to perform the analysis on the profile obtained from PSI-BLAST. Sequences can be submitted through a simple Web front end, in either single-letter raw format or in FASTA format. The results from the PSIPRED prediction are returned as a text file in an E-mail message. In addition, a link is also provided in the E-mail message to a graphical representation of the secondary structure prediction, visualized using a Java application called PSIPREDview. In this representation, the positions of the helices and strands are schematically represented above the target sequence. The average prediction accuracy for PSIPRED in three structural states is 76.5%, which is higher than any of the other methods described here.

SOPMA The Protein Sequence Analysis server at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Lyons, France, takes a unique approach in making secondary structure predictions: rather than using a single method, it uses five, the predictions from which are subsequently used to come up with a ‘‘consensus prediction.’’ The methods used are the Garnier–Gibrat–Robson (GOR) method (Garnier et al., 1996), the Levin homolog method (Levin et al., 1986), the double-prediction method (Deleáge and Roux, 1987), the PHD method described above as part of PredictProtein, and the method of CNRS itself, called SOPMA (Geourjon and De´leage, 1995). Briefly, this self-optimized prediction method builds subdatabases of protein sequences with known secondary structures; each of the proteins in a subdatabase is then subjected to secondary structure prediction based on sequence similarity. The information from the subdatabases is then used to generate a prediction on the query sequence. The method can be run by submitting just the sequence itself in single-letter format to [email protected], using SOPMA as the subject of the mail message, or by using the SOPMA Web interface. The output from each of the component predictions, as well as the consensus, is shown in Figure 11.4.

Comparison of Methods On the basis of Figure 11.4, it is immediately apparent that all the methods described above do a relatively good, but not perfect, job of predicting secondary structures. Where no other information is known, the best approach is to perform predictions using all the available algorithms and then to judge the validity of the predictions in comparison to one another. Flavodoxin was selected as the input query because it has a relatively intricate structure, falling into the ␣/␤-folding class with its six ␣helices and five ␤-sheets. Some assignments were consistently made by all methods; for example, all the methods detected ␤1, ␤3, ␤4, and ␣5 fairly well. However, some

S P E C I A L I Z E D S T R U C T U R E S O R F E AT U R E S

methods missed some elements altogether (e.g., nnpredict with ␣2, ␣3, and ␣4), and some predictions made no biological sense (e.g., the double-prediction method and ␤4, where helices, sheets, and turns alternate residue by residue). PredictProtein and PSIPRED, which both correctly found all the secondary structure elements and, in several places, identified structures of the correct length, appear to have made the best overall prediction. This is not to say that the other methods are not useful or not as good; undoubtedly, in some cases, another method would have emerged as having made a better prediction. This approach does not provide a fail-safe method of prediction, but it does reinforce the level of confidence resulting from these predictions. A new Web-based server, Jpred, integrates six different structure prediction methods and returns a consensus prediction based on simple majority rule. The usefulness of this server is that it automatically generates the input and output requirements for all six prediction algorithms, which can be an important feature when handling large data sets. The input sequence for Jpred can be a single protein sequence in FASTA or PIR format, a set of unaligned sequences in PIR format, or a multiple sequence alignment in MSF or BLC format. In case of a single sequence, the server first generates a set of related sequences by searching the OWL database using the BLASTP algorithm. The sequence set is filtered using SCANPS and then pairwisecompared using AMPS. Finally, the sequence set is clustered using a 75% identity cutoff value to remove any bias in the sequence set, and the remaining sequences are aligned using CLUSTAL W. The Jpred server runs PHD (Rost and Sander, 1993), DSC (King and Sternberg, 1996), NNSSP (Salamov and Solovyev, 1995), PREDATOR (Frishman and Argos, 1997), ZPRED (Zvelebil et al., 1987), and MULPRED (Barton, 1988). The results from the Jpred server is returned as a text file in an Email message; a link is also provided to view the colored graphical representation in HTML or PostScript file format. The consensus prediction from the Jpred server has an accuracy of 72.9% in the three structural states.

SPECIALIZED STRUCTURES OR FEATURES Just as the position of ␣-helices and ␤-sheets can be predicted with a relatively high degree of confidence, the presence of certain specialized structures or features, such as coiled coils and transmembrane regions, can be predicted. There are not as many methods for making such predictions as there are for secondary structures, primarily because the rules of folding that induce these structures are not completely understood. Despite this, when query sequences are searched against databases of known structures, the accuracy of prediction can be quite high.

Coiled Coils The COILS algorithm runs a query sequence against a database of proteins known to have a coiled-coil structure (Lupas et al., 1991). The program also compares query sequences to a PDB subset containing globular sequences and on the basis of the differences in scoring between the PDB subset and the coiled coils database, determines the probability with which the input sequence can form a coiled coil. COILS can be downloaded for use with VAX/VMS or may more easily be used through a simple Web interface.

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The program takes sequence data in GCG or FASTA format; one or more sequences can be submitted at once. In addition to the sequences, users may select one of two scoring matrices: MTK, based on the sequences of myosin, tropomyosin, and keratin, or MTIDK, based on myosin, tropomyosin, intermediate filaments types I– V, desmosomal proteins, and kinesins. The authors cite a trade-off between the scoring matrices, with MTK being better for detecting two-stranded structures and MTIDK being better for all other cases. Users may invoke an option that gives the same weight to the residues at the a and d positions of each coil (normally hydrophobic) as that given to the residues at the b, c, e, f, and g positions (normally hydrophilic). If the results of running COILS both weighted and unweighted are substantially different, it is likely that a false positive has been found. The authors caution that COILS is designed to detect solvent-exposed, left-handed coiled coils and that buried or right-handed coiled coils may not be detected. When a query is submitted to the Web server, a prediction graph showing the propensity toward the formation of a coiled coil along the length of the sequence is generated. A slightly easier to interpret output comes from MacStripe, a Macintosh-based application that uses the Lupas COILS method to make its predictions (Knight, 1994). MacStripe takes an input file in FASTA, PIR, and other common file formats and, like COILS, produces a plot file containing a histogram of the probability of forming a coiled coil, along with bars showing the continuity of the heptad repeat pattern. The following portion of the statistics file generated by MacStripe uses the complete sequence of GCN4 as an example: 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

L D D A V V E S F F S S S T

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

a b c d e f g a b c d e f g

0.760448 0.760448 0.760448 0.760448 0.760448 0.760448 0.760448 0.760448 0.760448 0.774300 0.812161 0.812161 0.812161 0.812161

0.000047 0.000047 0.000047 0.000047 0.000047 0.000047 0.000047 0.000047 0.000047 0.000058 0.000101 0.000101 0.000101 0.000101

The columns, from left to right, represent the residue number (shown twice), the amino acid, the heptad frame, the position of the residue within the heptad (a-bc-d-e-f-g), the Lupas score, and the Lupas probability. In this case, from the fifth column, we can easily discern a heptad repeat pattern. Examination of the results for the entire GCN4 sequence shows that the heptad pattern is fairly well maintained but falls apart in certain areas. The statistics should not be ignored; however, the results are easier to interpret if the heptad pattern information is clearly presented. It is possible to get a similar type of output from COILS but not through the COILS Web server; instead, a C-based program must be installed on an appropriate Unix machine, a step that may be untenable for many users.


Transmembrane Regions The Kyte-Doolittle TGREASE algorithm discussed above is very useful in detecting regions of high hydrophobicity, but, as such, it does not exclusively predict transmembrane regions because buried domains in soluble, globular proteins can also be primarily hydrophobic. We consider first a predictive method specifically for the prediction of transmembrane regions. This method, TMpred, relies on a database of transmembrane proteins called TMbase (Hofmann and Stoffel, 1993). TMbase, which is derived from SWISS-PROT, contains additional information on each sequence regarding the number of transmembrane domains they possess, the location of these domains, and the nature of the flanking sequences. TMpred uses this information in conjunction with several weight matrices in making its predictions. The TMpred Web interface is very simple. The sequence, in one-letter code, is pasted into the query sequence box, and the user can specify the minimum and maximum lengths of the hydrophobic part of the transmembrane helix to be used in the analysis. The output has four sections: a list of possible transmembrane helices, a table of correspondences, suggested models for transmembrane topology, and a graphic representation of the same results. When the sequence of the G-proteincoupled receptor (P51684) served as the query, the following models were generated: 2 possible models considered, only significant TM-segments used -----> STRONGLY preferred model: N-terminus outside 7 strong transmembrane helices, total score : 14211 # from to length score orientation 1 55 74 (20) 2707 o-i 2 83 104 (22) 1914 i-o 3 120 141 (22) 1451 o-i 4 166 184 (19) 2170 i-o 5 212 235 (24) 2530 o-i 6 255 276 (22) 2140 i-o 7 299 319 (21) 1299 o-i -----> alternative model 7 strong transmembrane helices, total score : 12079 # from to length score orientation 1 47 69 (23) 2494 i-o 2 84 104 (21) 1470 o-i 3 123 141 (19) 1383 i-o 4 166 185 (20) 1934 o-i 5 219 236 (18) 2474 i-o 6 252 274 (23) 1386 o-i 7 303 319 (17) 938 i-o Each of the proposed models indicates the starting and ending position of each segment, along with the relative orientation (inside-to-outside or outside-to-inside) of each segment. The authors appropriately caution that the models are based on the assumption that all transmembrane regions were found during the prediction. These models, then, should be considered in light of the raw data also generated by this method.

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PHDtopology One of the most useful methods for predicting transmembrane helices is PHDtopology, which is related to the PredictProtein secondary structure prediction method described above. Here, programs within the PHD suite are now used in an obviously different way to make a prediction on a membrane-bound rather than on a soluble protein. The method has reported accuracies that are nearly perfect: the accuracy of predicting a transmembrane helix is 92% and the accuracy for a loop is 96%, giving an overall two-state accuracy of 94.7%. One of the features of this program is that, in addition to predicting the putative transmembrane regions, it indicates the orientation of the loop regions with respect to the membrane. As before, PHDtopology predictions can be made using either an E-mail server or a Web front end. If an E-mail server is used, the format is identical to that shown for PredictProtein above, except that the line predict htm topology must precede the line beginning with the pound sign. Regardless of submission method, results are returned by E-mail. An example of the output returned by PHDtopology is shown in Figure 11.5.

Signal Peptides The Center for Biological Sequence Analysis at the Technical University of Denmark has developed SignalP, a powerful tool for the detection of signal peptides and their Joe Buzzcut National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH [email protected] predict htm topology # pendrin MAAPGGRSEPPQLPEYSCSYMVSRPVYSELAFQQQHERRLQERKTLRESLAKCCSCSRKRAFGVLKTLVPILEWLPKYRV KEWLLSDVISGVSTGLVATLQGMAYALLAAVPVGYGLYSAFFPILTYFIFGTSRHISVGPFPVVSLMVGSVVLSMAP...

....,....37...,....38...,....39...,....40...,....41...,....42 AA |YSLKYDYPLDGNQELIALGLGNIVCGVFRGFAGSTALSRSAVQESTGGKTQIAGLIGAII| PHD htm | HHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHH| Rel htm |368899999999999998641104667777655431257778887777621467788888| detail: | | prH htm |310000000000000000124457888888877765321110000111135788899999| prL htm |689999999999999999875542111111122234678889999888864211100000| . . . PHDThtm |iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTToooooooooooooooTTTTTTTT|

Figure 11.5. Partial output from a PHDtopology prediction. The input sequence is pendrin, which is responsible for Pendred syndrome (Everett et al., 1998). The row labeled AA shows a portion of the input sequence, and the row labeled Rel htm gives the reliability index of prediction at each position of the protein; values range from 0 to 9, with 9 representing the maximum possible confidence for the assignment at that position. The last line, labeled PHDThm, contains one of three letters: a T represents a transmembrane region, whereas an i or o represents the orientation of the loop with respect to the membrane (inside or outside).


cleavage sites (Nielsen et al., 1997). The algorithm is neural-network based, using separate sets of Gram-negative prokaryotic, Gram-positive prokaryotic, and eukaryotic sequences with known signal sequences as the training sets. SignalP predicts secretory signal peptides and not those that are involved in intracellular signal transduction. Using the Web interface, the sequence of the human insulin-like growth factor IB precursor (somatomedin C, P05019), whose cleavage site is known, was submitted to SignalP for analysis. The eukaryotic training set was used in the prediction, and the results of the analysis are as follows: ******************** SignalP predictions ******************** Using networks trained on euk data >IGF-IB length = 195 # pos aa C S Y . . 46 A 0.365 0.823 0.495 47 T 0.450 0.654 0.577 48 A 0.176 0.564 0.369 49 G 0.925 0.205 0.855 50 P 0.185 0.163 0.376 . . . < Is the sequence a signal peptide? # Measure Position Value Cutoff Conclusion max. C 49 0.925 0.37 YES max. Y 49 0.855 0.34 YES max. S 37 0.973 0.88 YES mean S 1 - 48 0.550 0.48 YES # Most likely cleavage site between pos. 48 and 49: ATA-GP In the first part of the output, the column labeled C is a raw cleavage site score. The value of C is highest at the position C-terminal to the cleavage site. The column labeled S contains the signal peptide scores, which are high at all positions before the cleavage site and very low after the cleavage site. S is also low in the N-termini of nonsecretory proteins. Finally, the Y column gives the combined cleavage site score, a geometric average indicating when the C score is high and the point at which the S score shifts from high to low. The end of the output file asks the question, ‘‘Is the sequence a signal peptide?’’ On the basis of the statistics, the most likely cleavage site is deduced. On the basis of the SWISS-PROT entry for this protein, the mature chain begins at position 49, the same position predicted to be the most likely cleavage site by SignalP.

Nonglobular Regions The use of the program SEG in the masking of low-complexity segments prior to database searches was discussed in Chapter 8. The same algorithm can also be used

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Figure 11.6. Predicted nonglobular regions for the protein product of the neurofibromatosis type 2 gene (L11353) as deduced by SEG. The nonglobular regions are shown in the left-hand column in lowercase. Numbers denote residue positions for each block.

to detect putative nonglobular regions of protein sequences by altering the trigger window length W, the trigger complexity K1, and extension complexity K2. When the command seg sequence.txt 45 3.4 3.75 is received, SEG will use a longer window length than the default of 12, thereby detecting long, nonglobular domains. An example of using SEG to detect nonglobular regions is shown in Figure 11.6.

TERTIARY STRUCTURE By far the most complex and technically demanding predictive method based on protein sequence data has to do with structure prediction. The importance of being able to adequately and accurately predict structure based on sequence is rooted in the knowledge that, whereas sequence may specify conformation, the same conformation may be specified by multiple sequences. The ideas that structure is conserved to a much greater extent than sequence and that there is a limited number of backbone motifs (Chothia and Lesk, 1986; Chothia, 1992) indicate that similarities between proteins may not necessarily be detected through traditional, sequence-based methods only. Deducing the relationship between sequence and structure is at the root of the ‘‘protein-folding problem,’’ and current research on the problem has been the focus of several reviews (Bryant and Altschul, 1995; Eisenhaber et al., 1995; Lemer et al., 1995). The most robust of the structure prediction techniques is homology model building or ‘‘threading’’ (Bryant and Lawrence, 1993; Fetrow and Bryant, 1993; Jones and Thornton, 1996). The threading methods search for structures that have a similar

TERTIARY STRUCTURE

fold without apparent sequence similarity. This method takes a query sequence whose structure is not known and threads it through the coordinates of a target protein whose structure has been solved, either by X-ray crystallography or NMR imaging. The sequence is moved position by position through the structure, subject to some predetermined physical constraints; for example, the lengths of secondary structure elements and loop regions may be either fixed or varying within a given range. For each placement of sequence against structure, pairwise and hydrophobic interactions between nonlocal residues are determined. These thermodynamic calculations are used to determine the most energetically favorable and conformationally stable alignment of the query sequence against the target structure. Programs such as this are computationally intensive, requiring, at a minimum, a powerful UNIX workstation; they also require knowledge of specialized computer languages. The threading methods are useful when the sequence-based structure prediction methods fail to identify a suitable template structure. Although techniques such as threading are obviously very powerful, their current requirements in terms of both hardware and expertise may prove to be obstacles to most biologists. In an attempt to lower the height of the barrier, easy-to-use programs have been developed to give the average biologist a good first approximation for comparative protein modeling. (Numerous commercial protein structure analysis tools, such as WHAT-IF and LOOK, provide advanced capabilities, but this discussion is limited to Web-based freeware.) The use of SWISS-MODEL, a program that performs automated sequence-structure comparisons (Peitsch, 1996), is a two-step process. The First Approach mode is used to determine whether a sequence can be modeled at all; when a sequence is submitted, SWISS-MODEL compares it with the crystallographic database (ExPdb), and modeling is attempted only if there is a homolog in ExPdb to the query protein. The template structures are selected if there is at least 25% sequence identity in a region more than 20 residues long. If the first approach finds one or more appropriate entries in ExPdb, atomic models are built and energy minimization is performed to generate the best model. The atomic coordinates for the model as well as the structural alignments are returned as an E-mail message. Those results can be resubmitted to SWISS-MODEL using its Optimize mode, which allows for alteration of the proposed structure based on other knowledge, such as biochemical information. An example of the output from SWISS-MODEL is shown in Figure 11.7. Another automated protein fold recognition method, developed at UCLA, incorporates predicted secondary structural information on the probe sequence in addition to sequence-based matches to assign a probable protein fold to the query sequence. In this method, correct assignment of the fold depends on the ranked scores generated for the probe sequence, based on its compatibility with each of the structures in a library of target three-dimensional structures. The inclusion of the predicted secondary structure in the analysis improves fold assignment by about 25%. The input for this method is a single protein sequence submitted through a Web front end. A Web page containing the results is returned to the user, and the results are physically stored on the UCLA server for future reference. The second approach compares structures with structures, in the same light as the vector alignment search tool (VAST) discussed in Chapter 5 does. The DALI algorithm looks for similar contact patterns between two proteins, performs an optimization, and returns the best set of structure alignment solutions for those proteins (Holm and Sander, 1993). The method is flexible in that gaps may be of any length,

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Figure 11.7. Molecular modeling using SWISS-MODEL. The input sequence for the structure prediction is the homeodomain region of human PITX2 protein. The output from SWISS-MODEL contains a text file containing a multiple sequence alignment, showing the alignment of the query against selected template structures from the Protein Data Bank (top). Also provided as part of the output is an atomic coordinate file for the target structure (center). In this example, the atomic coordinates of the target structure have been used to build a surface representation of the derived model using GRASP (lower left) and a ribbon representation of the derived model using RASMOL (lower right). (See color plate.)

INTERNET RESOURCES FOR TOPICS PRESENTED IN CHAPTER 11

and it allows for alternate connectivities between aligned segments, thereby facilitating identification of specific domains that are similar in two different proteins, even if the proteins as a whole are dissimilar. The DALI Web interface will perform the analysis on either two sets of coordinates already in PDB or by using a set of coordinates in PDB format submitted by the user. Alternatively, if both proteins of interest are present in PDB, their precomputed structural neighbors can be found by accessing the FSSP database of structurally aligned protein fold families (Holm and Sander, 1994), an ‘‘all-against-all’’ comparison of PDB entries. The final method to be discussed here expands on the PHD secondary structure method discussed above. In the TOPITS method (Rost, 1995), a searchable database is created by translating the three-dimensional structure of proteins in PDB into onedimensional ‘‘strings’’ of secondary structure. Then, the secondary structure and solvent accessibility of the query sequence is determined by the PHD method, with the results of this computation also being stored as a one-dimensional string. The query and target strings are then aligned by dynamic programming, to make the structure prediction. The results are returned as a ranked list, indicating the optimal alignment of the query sequence against the target structure, along with a probability estimate (Z-score) of the accuracy of the prediction. The methods discussed here are fairly elementary, hence their speed in returning results and their ability to be adapted to a Web-style interface. Their level of performance is impressive in that they often can detect weak structural similarities between proteins. Although the protein-folding problem is nowhere near being solved, numerous protein folds can reliably be identified using intricate methods that are continuously being refined. Because different methods proved to have different strengths, it is always prudent to use a ‘‘consensus approach,’’ similar to the approach used in the secondary structure prediction examples given earlier. The timing of these computational developments is quite exciting, inasmuch as concurrence with the imminent completion of the Human Genome Project will give investigators a powerful handle for predicting structure-function relationships as putative gene products are identified.

INTERNET RESOURCES FOR TOPICS PRESENTED IN CHAPTER 11 PREDICTION OF PHYSICAL PROPERTIES Compute pI/MW http://www.expasy.ch/tools/pi tool.html MOWSE http://srs.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/mowse PeptideMass http://www.expasy.ch/tools/peptide-mass.html TGREASE ftp://ftp.virginia.edu/pub/fasta/ SAPS http://www.isrec.isb-sib.ch/software/SAPS form.html PREDICTION OF PROTEIN IDENTITY BASED ON COMPOSITION AACompIdent http://www.expasy.ch/tools/aacomp/ AACompSim http://www.expasy.ch/tools/aacsim/ PROPSEARCH http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/prs.html MOTIFS AND BLOCKS Pfam PRINTS

PATTERNS

http://blocks.fhcrc.org http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Software/Pfam/ http://www.bioinf.man.ac.uk/dbbrowser/PRINTS/PRINTS.html

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ProfileScan

http://www.isrec.isb-sib.ch/software/PFSCAN form.html

PREDICTION OF nnpredict PredictProtein SOPMA Jpred PSIPRED PREDATOR


PREDICTION OF COILS MacStripe PHDtopology SignalP TMpred

SPECIALIZED STRUCTURES OR FEATURES

http://www.cmpharm.ucsf.edu/⬃nomi/nnpredict.html http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/predictprotein/ http://pbil.ibcp.fr/ http://jura.ebi.ac.uk:8888/ http://insulin.brunel.ac.uk/psipred http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/predator/predator info.html http://www.ch.embnet.org/software/COILS form.html http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/biol/units/coils/mstr2.html http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/predictprotein http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/SignalP/ http://www.isrec.isb-sib.ch/ftp-server/tmpred/www/TMPRED form.html

STRUCTURE PREDICTION DALI http://www2.ebi.ac.uk/dali/ Bryant-Lawrence ftp://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pkb/ FSSP http://www2.ebi.ac.uk/dali/fssp/ UCLA-DOE http://fold.doe-mbi.ucla.edu/Home SWISS-MODEL http://www.expasy.ch/swissmod/SWISS-MODEL.html TOPITS http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/predictprotein/

PROBLEM SET The sequence analyzed in the problem set in Chapter 10 yields at least one protein translation. Characterize this protein translation by answering the following questions. 1. Use ProtParam to determine the basic physicochemical properties of the unknown (leave the def line out when pasting the sequence into the query box). • What is the molecular weight (in kilodaltons) and predicted isoelectric point (pI) for the protein? 2. Based on the pI and the distribution of charged residues, would this unknown possibly be involved in binding to DNA? Perform a BLASTP search on the unknown, using SWISS-PROT as the target database. Run BLASTP using pairwise as the Alignment View. For each part of this question, consider the first protein in the hit list having a non-zero E-value. • What is the identity of this best, non-zero E-value hit, and what percent identity does the unknown share with this protein? For each alignment given, show the percent identity and the overall length of the alignment. • Based on the BLASTP results alone, can any general observations be made regarding the putative function or cellular role of the unknown? Do not just

REFERENCES

name the unknown—tell what you think the function of the unknown might be in the cell, based on all of the significant hits in the BLASTP results. 3. Does ProfileScan yield any additional information about the domain structure of this protein? • What types of domains were found? How many of each of these domains are present in the unknown? • Does the protein contain any low-complexity regions? If so, where? • Following the PDOC links to the right of the found domains, can any conclusions be made as to the cellular localization of this protein? 4. Does this protein have a putative signal sequence, based on SignalP? If so, what residues comprise the signal sequence? Is the result obtained from SignalP consistent with the BLASTP results and any associated GenBank entries? 5. Submit the sequence of the unknown to PHDtopology. On the basis of the results, draw a schematic of the protein, showing • the approximate location of any putative transmembrane helices and • the orientation of the N- and C-termini with respect to the membrane.

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12 EXPRESSED SEQUENCE TAGS (ESTs) Tyra G. Wolfsberg Genome Technology Branch National Human Genome Research Institute National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland

David Landsman Computational Biology Branch National Center for Biotechnology Information National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland

The benefits arising from the rapid generation of large numbers of low-quality cDNA sequences were not universally recognized when the concept was originally proposed in the late 1980s. Proponents of this approach argued that these cDNA sequences would allow for the quick discovery of hundreds or thousands of novel proteincoding genes. Their critics countered that cDNA sequencing would miss important regulatory elements that could be found only in the genomic DNA. In the end, the cDNA sequencing advocates appear to have won. Since the original description of 609 Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) in 1991 (Adams et al., 1991), the growth of ESTs in the public databases has been dramatic. The number of ESTs in GenBank surpassed the number of non-EST records in mid-1995; as of June 2000, the 4.6 million EST records comprised 62% of the sequences in GenBank. Although the original ESTs were of human origin, NCBI’s EST database (dbEST) now contains ESTs from over 250 organisms, including mouse, rat, Caenorhabditis elegans, and Drosophila melanogaster. In addition, several commercial establishments maintain privately funded, in-house collections of ESTs. ESTs are now widely used throughout 283

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the genomics and molecular biology communities for gene discovery, mapping, polymorphism analysis, expression studies, and gene prediction.

WHAT IS AN EST? An overview of an EST sequencing project is shown in Figure 12.1. In brief, a cDNA library is constructed from a tissue or cell line of interest. Individual clones are picked from the library, and one sequence is generated from each end of the cDNA insert. Thus, each clone normally has a 5⬘ and 3⬘ EST associated with it. The sequences average ~ 400 bases in length. Because the ESTs are short, they generally represent only fragments of genes, not complete coding sequences. Many sequencing centers have automated the process of EST generation, producing ESTs at a rapid rate. For example, at the time of this writing, the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University was producing over 20,000 ESTs per week. The ESTs that have been submitted to the public sequence databases to date were created from thousands of different cDNA libraries representing over 250 organisms. The libraries may be from whole organs, such as human brain, liver, lung, or skeletal muscle, specialized tissues or cells, such as cerebral cortex or epidermal keratinocyte, or cultured cell lines such as liver HepG2 or gastric carcinoma. Some libraries have been constructed to compare transcripts from different developmental stages, such as fetal versus infant human brain or embryonic 7-day versus neonatal 10-day rat heart ventricle. Others are used to highlight gene expression differences between normal and transformed tissue, such as normal colonic epithelium and colorectal carcinoma cell line. The libraries are constructed by isolating mRNA from the tissue or cell line of interest. The mRNA is then reverse-transcribed into cDNA, usually with an oligo(dT) primer, so that one end of the cDNA insert derives from the polyA tail at the end of the mRNA. The other end of the cDNA is normally

Cell or tissue Deposit the EST sequences in dbEST

Isolate mRNA and reverse transcribe into cDNA 5’ EST

3’ EST

Clone cDNA into a vector to make a cDNA library cDNA

cDNA cDNA

vector

cDNA

vector vector

Pick individual clones

Sequence the 5’ and 3’ ends of each cDNA insert

vector

Figure 12.1. Overview of how ESTs are constructed.

W H AT I S A N E S T ?

within the coding sequence but may be in the 5⬘ untranslated region if the coding sequence is short. The resulting cDNA is cloned into a vector. In many libraries, the cDNA is cloned directionally. Some of the libraries are normalized to bring the frequency of occurrence of clones representing individual mRNA species into a narrow range (Bonaldo et al., 1996; Soares et al., 1994). Other libraries are constructed by a process of subtractive hybridization, in which a pool of mRNA sequences is removed from a library of interest, leaving behind sequences unique to that library (Bonaldo et al., 1996). For example, to construct a library for the study of bipolar disorder, researchers started with human frontal lobe cDNA from individuals with bipolar disorder, and subtracted out cDNA that hybridized to cDNA from mentally normal individuals (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/dbEST/dbest libs.html#lib1475). With the use of primers that hybridize to the vector sequence, the ends of the cDNA insert are sequenced. Automatic DNA sequencers generate most EST data. If the cDNA has been directionally cloned into the vector, the sequences can be classified as deriving from the 5⬘ or 3⬘ end of the clone. In most cases, both the 5⬘ and 3⬘ sequences are determined, but some EST projects have concentrated only on 5⬘ ESTs to maximize the amount of coding sequence determined. Because the sequence of each EST is generated only once, the sequences may (and often do) contain errors. Contaminating vector, mitochondrial, and bacterial sequences are routinely removed before the EST sequences are deposited into the public databases (Hillier et al., 1996). ESTs in the databases are identified by their clone number as well as their 5⬘ or 3⬘ orientation, if known. The I.M.A.G.E. Consortium (Lennon et al., 1996) has picked individual clones from many of the libraries used for EST sequencing and arrayed them for easy distribution. These clones can be obtained royalty-free from I.M.A.G.E. Consortium distributors. As of the time of this writing, more than 3.8 million cDNA clones have been arrayed from 360 human and 108 mouse cDNA libraries; zebrafish and Xenopus clones have also been arrayed. I.M.A.G.E. Consortium sequences currently comprise more than half of the ESTs in GenBank. Most of the sequencing of I.M.A.G.E. clones is performed by the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University/St. Louis. Merck sponsored human clone sequencing in 1995 and 1996; since then, the collaborative EST project has been sponsored by the National Cancer Institute as part of the Cancer Genome Anatomy Project. Sequencing by Washington University/St. Louis of mouse cDNAs is sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Sequence trace data from the ESTs sequenced by the Washington University/St. Louis projects are available online.

How to Access ESTs ESTs are submitted to all three international sequence databases (GenBank, EMBL, and DDBJ), under the data-sharing agreement described in Chapter 2. Therefore, all ESTs can be accessed through all of these databases, regardless of where the sequence was originally submitted. The same ESTs are also available from the NCBI’s dbEST, the database of Expressed Sequence Tags (Boguski et al., 1993). Instructions about how to submit EST sequences to GenBank are available online. Like other sequences in GenBank, ESTs can be accessed through Entrez (see Chapter 7). Single ESTs are retrieved by accession or gi number. Advanced searches with multiple search terms can be limited to ESTs by selecting the Properties limit and entering EST. The two ESTs deriving from a particular I.M.A.G.E. clone

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can be retrieved by searching for “IMAGE:clone number” (e.g., “IMAGE: 743313”). The Entrez version of the EST with accession AW592465 is shown in Figure 12.2. Various identifiers for the EST, including the accession number and GenBank gi, are shown in the top block. The CLONE INFO section specifies the number of the clone (2934602) and whether this EST derives from the 5⬘ or 3⬘ end of the clone (here, 3⬘). The nucleotide sequence is shown next, along with a note supplied by the submitter about where the high-quality sequence stops. The COMMENTS block tells how to order the clone from the I.M.A.G.E. Consortium. The last few sections present other information supplied by the submitter, including details about the cDNA library. Although many ESTs (especially 5⬘ ESTs) can be translated into a partial or sometimes full-length protein sequence, coding sequence features are not provided. Other views of the data, including a FASTA-formatted DNA sequence, can be selected from a pull-down at the top of the Entrez entry (not shown). EST sequences are also available for BLAST searching. Because ESTs are nucleotide sequences, they can be retrieved only by using BLAST programs that search nucleotide databases (BLASTN for a nucleotide sequence query, TBLASTN for a protein sequence query, and TBLASTX for a translated nucleotide sequence query). Because they make up such a high proportion of sequences in GenBank, ESTs are not included in the BLAST nr database. To search against ESTs, select the dbest database or, for a specific organism, the mouse ests, human ests, or other ests database. Note that ESTs are also included in the month database, which contains all new or revised sequences released in the last 30 days.

Limitations of EST Data Although ESTs are an excellent source of sequence data, these data are not of as high a quality as sequences determined by conventional means. Because EST sequences are generated in a single pass, they have a higher error rate than sequences that are verified by multiple sequencing runs, on the order of 3% (Boguski et al., 1993). In contrast, the standard for the human genome project is an error rate of

Bioinformatics: A Practical Guide to the Analysis of Genes and Proteins Second Edition (Methods of Biochemical Analysis)

Bioinformatics: A Practical Guide to the Analysis of Genes and Proteins

Bioinformatics: a practical guide to the analysis of genes and proteins